Press Council apologizes for journalists’ misconduct
The Press Council of Mongolia held a press conference on Thursday to report on complaints related to journalists and editorial rooms, and their common mistakes.
The council has been receiving complaints about errors made on journalistic articles since 2015. Over the last three years, the Ethics Committee on Newspaper, Magazine, Website and Radio, and Television has been handling these complaints.
To date, the committee provided solutions for 160 complaints made by 49 organizations and individuals, according to the Press Council. More than 70 percent of complaints were filed by individuals and latest trends show that increasing number of government organizations are submitting complaints.
The majority of complaints demanded to sue journalists for defamation. Insufficient fact checking and using unreliable sources were the main cause, according to the Ethics Committeeon Newspaper, Magazine, Website and Radio, and Television.
The committee reported that they found no ethical misconduct in 23 of the overall 160 complaints. If the committee detects a journalistic error, it notifies the respective editorial room, issues a correction and formal apology. To date, 18 corrections were issued with an official apology.
People are choosing to file complaints related to journalism errors to the Press Council rather than the police, said J.Batbaatar, a member of the Ethics Committeeon Newspaper, Magazine, Website and Radio, and Television.
“Responsible journalism must be a topic of discussion as press and media outlets are powerful tools with high social responsibility. The Press Council supervises to make sure journalism ethics are followed. Our council is in charge of protecting the public from ethical misconduct of journalists,” he said.
“The main reason journalists are making errors in their writing is their reluctance to sometimes factcheck because they are required to race against time and keep up to date with news all the time. On the other hand, choosing inaccurate word choice is arising issues of defamation. However, the situation has improved considerably compared to five to 10 years ago.”
Almost 90 percent of complaints were related to newspapers, magazines and websites and the rest connected to radios and televisions. More than 60 percent of total complaints were linked to journalists working at news websites, underlined the Press Council.