Whenever I meet with a group of journalists around the country invariably someone will ask me (always with a sarcastic edge):

"Hey, Gary, you think a news council is necessary?"

Of course, they think I will say yes, because a news council pays my salary. But I always surprise them by saying no.

It isn’t necessary, but like all forms of openness news outlets adopt, a news council can help them build public trust.

In all the time I have observed the Minnesota News Council, as a voting member from 1982-88, as an interested citizen from 1988-92, and as executive director since 1992, there has never been a time more promising for discussion of media fairness and for building public trust.

That’s directly attributable to last summer’s agonies at The New York Times: the published fabrications by the reporter Jayson Blair, the revelations that the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Rick Bragg failed to credit stringers who had done a lot of his legwork, and the forcing out of the paper’s two top editors.

As a result of those failures and embarrassments, The Times formed a committee, including a few outsiders, to recommend reforms. Among them: the hiring of an ombudsman, a position the paper had previously refused to consider.

That refusal grew from the insistence of the paper’s former executive editor, Abe Rosenthal, that every editor was an ombudsman. (Editors are too busy to do that job.)

The Times also refused to participate in the process of the National News Council, saying that outsiders had no business trying to influence the workings of the newsroom, and that such outside scrutiny was, in Rosenthal’s words, "the camel’s nose under the tent, and the first step toward government control of the press."

The truth is the exact opposite.

The more open a news outlet becomes, the more trust it engenders, and a public that trusts a news outlet will not allow government to control it.

The act of creating an ombudsman position says to the public: "Tell us what you think of our work. Complain about it. Question our standards. We’re here to listen, and what you say can help us serve you better."

That sort of communication forms the basis of any respectful relationship.

For too long too many news outlets have stiff-armed the public, responding to complaints by saying, "You wouldn’t understand. We’re the professionals."

Imagine a restaurant owner responding to a dissatisfied patron that way. Imagine one spouse telling the other, "You have no right to feel that way." We all know how successful those answers are.

So, why do news people have so much trouble realizing they are in a relationship with their readers and viewers?

For one thing, news people feel, justifiably, that they have been trained to "get it right." Unfortunately, they too often resent a suggestion that they got it wrong. And they bridle at criticism when they think it represents an attempt to get them to soft-pedal a tough story, or to do someone’s PR.

The remedies are simple, and successful editors and news directors have shared them with the News Council and each other:

1) Listen without interrupting.

2) Openly discuss standards.

3) If the complaint has merit, ask what the news outlet can do to satisfy the complainant.

4) Take public responsibility for shortcomings.

On top of that approach, news people can take other actions:

1) Publish letters and commentaries critical of the paper.

2) Publish columns by news executives on subjects that make the paper feel vulnerable.

3) Hire an ombudsman, or reader representative.

4) Participate in the workings of a news council, and let the public know, regularly, the way the St. Paul Pioneer Press does each day on Page 2A, next to the corrections, that if the paper can’t resolve a complaint on its own, it will go with the complainant to the Minnesota News Council.

How can that do anything but reassure Pioneer Press readers that the paper is open and accountable?

Editors tell us that, if they and their colleagues listen to complaints without interrupting, the vast majority of callers thank the paper and drop the matter. Editors say callers are surprised and delighted that they got to talk to a real person (not a voice recording), and that the person listened and did not deliver an angry lecture on the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press.

News people around the country who are suspicious of news councils just haven’t heard enough about how one works. About how a news council cares as much about serving the media as the public, and about how it can help news outlets avoid lapses that cause harm and complaint.

A newspaper executive in a neighboring state once pulled me aside at an industry convention and said he thought the Minnesota Newspaper Association was crazy to have formed the Minnesota News Council. "It must be something in the water they drink," he said. "We don’t have those ethical problems in our state."

Minnesota editors tell us they’re glad we’re here, because we help them think about hard decisions they have to make to serve their communities. And they know we bear no resemblance to a camel’s nose.