ANNOUNCEMENTS•
The Journalism Council determined that the NOS in the item ‘Polish MEP warns Poland against working in the Netherlands’ on June 23, the journalist acted somewhat carelessly.
The Council is an independent institution where involved parties can make complaints about journalistic activities if they feel that the medium itself has not handled them properly. The Council then judges whether the medium has done its job carefully or whether journalistic ethical boundaries have been crossed.
Employment agency IFC Work lodged a complaint with the Council because it believed that NOS had published factual inaccuracies in this article on the management of migrant workers, made unwarranted suggestions and had failed to correctly apply the journalistic principle of adversity.
The Council now concludes that the NOS acted carelessly, because it did not explain the role of the external recruiter well enough in the article. “An article discussing ‘modern slavery’ should make it clearer that the behavior of outside recruiters working for different companies is part of the problem outlined,” the Council writes.
As regards the other points, the Panel considers that NOS acted with due diligence. The Council on the rebuttal: “It was not apparent that the complainant’s (IFC Work) response in the opening article was reproduced incorrectly and/or was incompletely elaborated. (…) Also, later that day , NOS News, at the request of the complainant, article revised again to publish an even more generous rebuttal.”
This is why the Council comes to the final conclusion that the NOS acted partly negligently. The entire ruling of the council is found here. This is also included in the original article.
