Ga. Legislaturecalls for media coverage review p.

By: Editorial Staff

AN EDITOR WHO serves in the Georgia Legislature said his colleagues were only blowing off steam when they called for the creation of a state panel to pass judgment on complaints about inaccurate news reporting.
A lawmaker who supported the measure said he hoped it would prompt journalists' review of legislative coverage.
Nearly identical resolutions approved the day before by the House and Senate asserted that Georgians often do not get the truth from news reports and that efforts to seek corrections "are often met with arrogance and contempt by the media."
The resolutions, which are nonbinding and do not have the force of law, urge journalists to support the creation of a "media ethics and error review panel" that would review citizens' complaints about news reports and publicize its findings.
Rep. DuBose Porter, editor of Dublin's Courier Herald, said the resolutions should not be taken too seriously.
"Here you were in the waning hours of the last day of the session, and I think it was more releasing of steam than anything else," he said. "I don't think anybody was very serious about the resolution."
The House passed its version 135-7. The Senate version passed unanimously.
Rep. Sonny Dixon, a co-sponsor of the House resolution, said the effort sprang from a discussion among several legislators about general media coverage of the Legislature.
Dixon was a negotiator last year in reapportionment efforts and cited that as a subject he contends was reported inaccurately.
The resolutions urged the Georgia Press Association and the Georgia Association of Broadcasters to support the creation of the media review panel.
"I don't see any need for an additional mechanism. I strongly advocate media self-regulation, and anything that even hints of external regulation, I'm opposed to," said Bill Sanders, executive director of the GAB, which has run a complaint review program since 1980.
Under both resolutions, the review panel would be made up of three media professionals chosen by the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker. Other members would include the chairmen of the House and Senate Ethics Committees and two private citizens selected by the governor.
The panel would have no power to punish or sanction, but its records would be public and, under the House version, would be admissible as evidence in any libel suits.