Partly as a result of the profile that the job of readers' editor has here at the Guardian, and partly through my involvement in the Organisation of News Ombudsmen (Ono), I am asked to speak about the ombudsman system - to explain how it works - in many parts of the world, most recently in Jordan.
Most, but not all, of the participants in the main session at which I spoke in Amman were familiar with the Guardian. I checked online readership in the region through the Guardian's digital targeting system. On February 13, several hundred unique users, separate individuals, in the country visited the Guardian website, a slightly smaller number in Lebanon, more than 2,000 in Israel - the only country in the region ever to have had a newspaper ombudsman - and about 1,000 each in Iran and Egypt.
The stability of Jordan, loyalty to the king and government, and the acknowledged importance of the role Jordan seeks to play as a mediator and peacemaker in the region have been used to justify restriction of the media, although some cautious change is taking place. There is no deeply entrenched habit of newspaper reading, although the adult literacy rate is more than 90%. The total circulation of daily newspapers there, I was told, amounts to less than 200,000 in a country of some 6 million. There is little interaction between newspapers and readers, or broadcast news and audiences.
The concept of a news ombudsman, the meaning of the word itself, was something to be explained pretty much from scratch. The question of whether, or when or to what extent, it could be applied in Jordan, is a matter for the consideration of Jordanians.
The message is always more or less the same: that it is the only form of self-regulation that has the effect of building trust between a specific news organisation and its readers, listeners or viewers - and, increasingly, its online users.
The aim is to render the newspaper, let us say, accountable to its readers, and readers in the end will judge to what extent that is achieved. The system worked best, I suggested, when the independence of the ombudsmen was publicly conceded by the employer and demonstrated in practice, leading, over a period, to its acknowledgment by the reader.
Independence is one basic requirement. Another is visibility: is the ombudsman visible to the reader? Is the reader told clearly enough how the ombudsman can be contacted?
A starting point for a newspaper, radio or television network considering the introduction of the system would be to ask another question: what kind of relationship do you want with your readership or audience? A willingness to consider complaints and to carry corrections should be a sign (not the only one) that the relationship desired is one of civilised interaction based on mutual respect. It should then help to provide a firmer base from which to resist and limit government control.
This is the sort thing I was saying in Jordan where I went at the joint invitation of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and Irex, the International Research and Exchanges Board (the "media strengthening" programme in Jordan is financed by USAid).
To demonstrate how the system works I conducted a workshop for about 10 senior Jordanian journalists and presenters, mainly from English-language newspapers and services.
We discussed three of these Open door columns: one dealing with the picture of an abused prisoner at Abu Ghraib whose face was clearly visible; one about the question of news values arising from the scant coverage given in the Guardian and other British newspapers to a ferry disaster off the coast of Senegal; and the third about plagiarism.
The most animated discussion was about the Abu Ghraib picture. The journalists to a large extent shared the dilemma over whether the victim's face should or should not have been pixelated, masked, by the newspaper. On balance, though, the feeling was that it should have been, and great emphasis was placed on the way in which such exposure would increase the depth of humiliation.
There was a great deal of interest in having this kind of public and published discussion of issues raised by readers. Whether something of the kind will be tried in Jordan, either in the print or broadcast news media, I do not know.
· Ian Mayes is president of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen