Ombudsman To the Swedes   

When it comes to mediating complaints about coverage, Sweden's Press Ombudsman gets high marks in the Scandinavian nation. But how exportable is this concept?

Mark Levengood was furious. The biggest-selling newspaper in Sweden had devoted its front page to a story – complete with splashy photo – about how he was going to quit his job as a TV talk show host because of illness. And not just any illness. The paper said the openly gay Levengood had problems with his "immune system," clearly implying that he was HIV positive.

"I felt like I was raped," says Levengood. "They wanted people to believe I was dying of AIDS."

He wasn't. Nor was he HIV positive. He had contracted a chronic but non-fatal strain of dysentery on a trip to Egypt in 1989. And he had no intention of resigning – as he'd told the paper's reporter in an interview the day before.

What next? A lawsuit and a storm of angry denials by Levengood and his lawyer, actions guaranteed to embed the allegation more deeply in the public consciousness? Cautious fudging by the paper, Expressen, wary of making concessions that may jeopardize its case? Lengthy negotiations between lawyers, horrifying legal bills, mountains of documents – and, after a couple of years, a multimillion dollar settlement in which Expressen agrees to admit its error in a tiny correction published at the bottom of page 23?

Actually, no. Levengood phoned Per-Arne Jigenius, the Swedish Press Ombudsman, or PO, who helped him strike a deal with the newspaper. In little over a week, it ran a half-page apology, including a photo of Levengood and a headline on the front page that read "Excuse Us, Mark."

"I was so happy," says Levengood. "I just wanted my reputation and my honor back." Edgar Antonsson, who was Expressen's editor in chief at the time, was satisfied too. "If he had taken it to court, I think he would have won it."

Both acknowledged the role played by Jigenius in brokering the arrangement. " 'Instant press ethics,' I call it," says Jigenius, 55, a genial pipe-smoker with a measured manner. Of the 450 or so complaints that cross his desk each year, he says he manages to resolve about 70 of them in this fashion. He says he negotiates a quick solution whenever possible, drawing on his 20 years' experience as a newspaper editor. "When I contact a paper," he chuckles, "they know that I know what it's all about." When complaints are valid, he says, "it's usually possible to get a peaceful and rapid solution."

Richard Jewell no doubt would have been happy to have had a Press Ombudsman to contact when he was fingered as a suspect in the Olympic Park bombing. And with the American public increasingly critical of the perceived excesses of the media, the search is on for ways to strengthen media accountability.

So maybe a national ombudsman should be considered. But those who know the system best say the reasons it works well in Sweden have much to do with the Swedish character and traditions. It might not be easy to export, they warn.

How does the Swedish system work? Unlike most of the limbs of Sweden's vast bureaucracy, the Press Ombudsman's office is not run or funded by the government, but by the media itself. The PO is appointed by a special committee with representatives from the Swedish Bar Association, the press and the government. All the members of the Newspaper Publishers Association – including all the daily newspapers in Sweden – have agreed to abide by a Code of Ethics, which sets rigorous standards concerning accuracy, privacy and rights of reply. People who claim they've been harmed by a violation of the Code can complain to the PO, who may investigate, mediate and even recommend that the Swedish Press Council punish the offending publications. (Broadcasters also sign onto the Code, but don't come under the PO's purview.)

The Press Council's membership is drawn from the Newspaper Publishers Association, the National Press Club, the Swedish Union of Journalists – and the public, which always holds a majority. It's chaired by a judge. If it decides a case against a paper or magazine, as it did 46 times in 1997, almost always on the recommendation of the PO, the offending publication must publish the Council's decision and pay a fine of about $3,000, which the council keeps.

Cases that make it to the Press Council take a little longer to resolve than Mark Levengood's. But the process still moves a lot faster than the courts. When the gossipy Swedish magazine See and Hear published doctored photos of Crown Princess Victoria, superimposing her head on photos of a model in swimsuits, there was no instant resolution of her complaint. Instead, the PO invited the magazine to respond to the royal family's letter of protest, and in turn passed the magazine's response to Princess Victoria for her comment. After six weeks or so of letter-swapping, Jigenius rendered his recommendation to the Council: See and Hear should have stuck to what it actually saw and heard. Four months after the original complaint – a long time by the system's standards – the Council decided to uphold the PO's finding that the doctoring of the photos by See and Hear violated the Swedish publicity rules.

In cases like Princess Victoria's, the PO is often able to provide a remedy where none exists in the law. There's no protection for privacy under Sweden's law, for example, though the Code of Ethics instructs the media to "be careful in giving publicity where it can trespass upon an individual's privacy" and to "refrain from such action unless it is obviously in the public interest." It makes special mention of victims of crime and accidents, people who attempt or commit suicide, and those accused of crimes. Some of the complaints are from people who believe they've been identified in the paper when there was no need to do so.

In other instances, like that of Mark Levengood, the PO system channels complaints away from the courts. Complainants don't have to give up their right to sue, but after using the PO system, very few of them want to.

By Jigenius' estimate, only two or three of the 436 cases he handled in 1996 went to court afterward. Lawyers often advise clients to use the PO system as a first step to help them evaluate the strength of their cases, and they often end up convinced that a lawsuit would be fruitless. And in fact, Jigenius dismisses the vast majority of the complaints he receives.

The PO system enjoys surprisingly broad support. It's difficult to find anyone in Sweden – journalists, communications professors, editors, media lawyers, government officials or members of the public – who doesn't think the office is a good thing. What's more, almost everyone is generally satisfied with the decisions the PO and the Press Council reach. "There's common sense in the judgments," says Expressen's administrative editor, Lars Flodstrom, adding hastily that he doesn't agree with all of them. Overall, though, he thinks the system provides a quick and cheap remedy for people who otherwise may have nowhere to turn. "It's very easy to hurt someone when you're making an article," he admits. "This person's wife, this person's parents, this person's children – they are all very naked, very weak, at that moment."

The Ombudsman also seems to have made some impact where it counts: in the newsroom. Several years ago, Aftonbladet, an afternoon tabloid often criticized by the PO, ran a photo of a dead girl in an opaque body bag and published her name. The PO and the press council upheld her mother's complaint, saying Aftonbladet had violated Sweden's peculiarly strict ethical principles demanding respect for the privacy of victims' families. "We don't publish pictures like that anymore," says Susanne Wixe, chairman of the local Union of Journalists at Aftonbladet, "unless they're foreigners outside Sweden."

Wixe says the principles in the Code of Ethics are discussed pretty much every night. Should we run this picture? Should we name this person? "Of course, we don't want to get reported [to the Ombudsman]," she says. "It doesn't look good."

Sometimes, however, papers will decide to publish and be damned. If the story is important enough, says Expressen Managing Editor Lars Naslund, "we have an obligation to tell people, even if we are criticized later."

On the other hand, a spate of decisions against Expressen a few years ago – the fault of an editorial staff that was green and sloppy, says Naslund – seemed to have some effect on the paper's owners. They fired most of the editorial personnel and replaced them with others who were more professional and disciplined.

Clearly, this is a code with clout. "The ethical rules constrain us much more than the legal framework does," says Erik Fichtelius, a senior political correspondent at Television Channel One, who published a book and documentary on media ethics.

But that's not so surprising. Sweden has some of the most press-friendly laws in the world. The Swedish constitution guarantees freedom of the press and outlaws prior restraint. There's no legal right of reply or of privacy. Sedition is not a crime. Libel law is so heavily stacked against plaintiffs that only about 10 to 20 cases get to court each year.

"The law is unbalanced when it comes to conflicts between private citizens and the media," says former PO Hans-Gunnar Axberger, who's also a lawyer. And indeed it is. Juries vote against the media in only a third of the cases, estimates media lawyer Peter Danowsky. Even when the jury finds for the plaintiff, the media defendant gets a second chance when it puts its arguments to the judges. Half the time the judges will throw the case out on their own, says Danowsky. On the rare occasions when a plaintiff wins, damages and criminal penalties are low. The maximum fine, hardly ever imposed, is less than $20,000. A typical damages bill is about $3,000, says Danowsky, plus perhaps $6,000 to $25,000 in costs, usually paid by the losing party.

When Viktor Gunnarsson sued the Swedish paper Arbetet for libel in 1987 after it reported he was a suspect in the killing of Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme, he won $10,000 in damages for mental suffering and an extra $12,000 for loss of potential earnings. The editor was fined about $1,500.

These weak libel laws may make the PO system the only effective and affordable remedy for the Swedish public. But there are those, such as journalism professor Stig Hadenius, who wonder just how effective it is. In a legal climate as sunny for the media as Sweden's, editors view complaints to the PO as little worse than pesky squalls, he says. "Journalists do what they want," he insists, suggesting that the Press Council's fines should be raised.

His colleague Erik Fichtelius, on the other hand, worries that journalists sweat too much about ethics. He chastises the Swedish press for failing to name doctors and lawyers who've been found guilty of misconduct by professional disciplinary bodies. "We're much too reluctant to publish names," he says. "We're too fair and too careful." Others say it doesn't work for public figures, who seldom use it, because they are expected to be able to defend themselves in the media.

Finally, there's a criticism that few in Sweden make: The code is very narrow. It's tough on respect for privacy and authenticity of photos, but it says nothing about surreptitious newsgathering techniques, checkbook journalism, advertorials or conflicts of interest.

But Jigenius sees this as a strength. "I don't deal with it if it didn't lead to any publicity which harmed a person," he says. Axberger agrees that the system's focus adds to its power. "It doesn't reach for more than it can handle," he says.

Whatever its limitations, it is clear that in a significant number of cases the PO system gives injured members of the public what they want most – a prompt and inexpensive correction, while helping the media avoid what they most fear – a long and expensive lawsuit. But would it work in other countries? Axberger doesn't think so. "I would go a bit further," he says. "I don't think this system could be created in Sweden today if it didn't already exist."

The system is a product of a combination of factors that may be unique: a population that is accustomed to regulation and confident in bureaucracy as a solution to social ills; an industry that is prepared to cooperate – with remarkable unanimity – for mutual advantage; a government that may very well legislate if the media becomes overly irresponsible; and a culture that prizes rationality and consensus, and loathes confrontation and mudslinging.

Sweden's society is simply more cohesive and caring than most others, says Expressen's Lars Naslund, and Swedish journalists are, first and foremost, Swedes. Even when they're deciding not to run a story or photo, he says, often it is not the law of libel or the Code of Ethics that's uppermost in their minds, "it's just that it doesn't feel right to do it." He also doubts that editors in the U.S. would be prepared to tolerate independent – and public – criticism of their editorial decisions.

Current PO Jigenius is also skeptical about the system's exportability. He doubts that other countries or states would be able to convince all their daily newspapers to sign on. If only two-thirds agree to abide by the system, he says, the worst offenders will probably remain outside it.

Still, with U.S. journalism's credibility flagging and costly lawsuits always looming, the Swedish model may be worth considering. "It's a bit like democracy," says Axberger. "It's not perfect, but show me something that's better." l