JOHN S. AND JAMES L. KNIGHT FOUNDATION, MINNESOTA NEWS COUNCIL AND WASHINGTON NEWS COUNCIL TO AWARD GRANTS

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has named the Minnesota News Council in Minneapolis and Washington News Council in Seattle to conduct a national contest for two $75,000 seed grants to form new news councils. The seed money will come from a $250,000 Knight Foundation grant awarded jointly to the Minnesota and Washington News Councils to administer the nationwide competition.

The mission of the Minnesota and Washington News Councils is to promote fair, accurate, vigorous and trusted journalism. They do this by engaging news organizations and the public in open conversations about standards of fairness. News councils are often mistakenly referred to as watchdog groups. They are not; the news media are, and should be, the watchdogs of all institutions in a society.

But the news media — also a societal institution — historically have resisted scrutiny from outside the newsroom. In today’s climate, in which news organizations seeking to rebuild trust are recognizing the value of openness, news councils offer another way to achieve it.

The Minnesota and Washington News Councils encourage parties in dispute to resolve their differences. If they cannot agree, the council will conduct a hearing in public at which a dozen journalists and a dozen laypersons consider the complaint and issue a determination that is widely publicized. The determination carries no sanctions but is meant to generate a conversation that can lead to improved media performance and increased public trust.

Both existing news councils also engage in other activities to help maintain public trust and confidence in the news media – holding public forums and panels, speaking to community and civic groups, and sponsoring educational activities including student mock hearings, internships, and scholarships.

The Minnesota News Council was formed in 1970 by the Minnesota Newspaper Association, and soon became an independent organization. The Washington News Council was formed in 1998 by a group of concerned citizens, including many journalists, and is also an independent non-profit organization.

CONTACTS:

Gary Gilson, Minnesota News Council, gary@news-council.org, 612-341-9357

John Hamer, Washington News Council, jhamer@wanewscouncil.org, 206-262-9793

How we got started:
In the late 1960s the Minnesota Newspaper Association recognized that public trust in the news media was declining. The association, which represents the interests of about 385 papers across the state (25 or so of them dailies, most of the rest weeklies), dispatched a University of Minnesota journalism professor, Ed Gerald, to study the work of the British Press Council in London. He was impressed with its ability to resolve complaints and to restore public trust, and he came back urging the association to start a news council here.

It would have 24 voting members, half of them journalists and half laypersons, and a sitting justice of the state supreme court as chairperson at public hearings on unresolved complaints. The Minnesota News Council was incorporated in
December 1970 and heard its first case in January 1971. It upheld the complaint of a legislator who said the Union Advocate newspaper had unfairly described him as being on the take from the liquor lobby. At the hearing the editor admitted that he had not checked the veracity of the story because it was good a story to lose. Few of the cases since have proved so easy.