journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
and
editor
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, orga ...
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
Organization of News Ombudsmen The Organization of News Ombudsmen and Standards Editors (ONO) is a modern, international non-profit organization. ONO membership comprises news ombudsman, readers' representatives and standards editors from around the world, working online, in prin ...
from May 2005 to May 2007,ONO's Members ''Organization of News Ombudsmen'' serving as a board member since May 2002 after joining in April 2001.Ian Mayes "Open Door: Ono? Oh, yes" ''The Guardian'', 27 April 2001.
Background
Ian Mayes' career as a journalist spans six decades and includes many years as features editor of the ''
Northampton Chronicle and Echo
The ''Northampton Chronicle & Echo'' (known locally as ''"The Chron"'') is a local newspaper serving Northampton, England, and the surrounding towns and villages. It was published daily from Monday-Saturday until 26 May 2012 at a price of £0.4 ...
'', before he joined
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering th ...
News in
Broadcasting House
Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC, in Portland Place and Langham Place, London. The first radio broadcast from the building was made on 15 March 1932, and the building was officially opened two months later, on 15 May. The main ...
(1979–87), then became assistant features editor of the short-lived ''
London Daily News
The ''London Daily News'' was a short-lived London newspaper owned by Robert Maxwell. It was published from 24 February to 23 July 1987.
History
The ''London Daily News'' was intended to be a "24-hour" paper challenging the local dominance of t ...
''."Annex: A statement by Ian Mayes, Readers' Editor" Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, www.parliament.co.uk.
Mayes began writing for ''The Guardian'' as a freelance in 1962, his first piece being a story on the features page (then edited by
Brian Redhead
Brian Leonard Redhead (28 December 1929 – 23 January 1994) was a British author, journalist and broadcaster. He was a co-presenter of the Today (BBC Radio 4), ''Today'' programme on BBC Radio 4 from 1975 until 1993, shortly before his death. ...
) about the return of
Laurie Lee
Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE (26 June 1914 – 13 May 1997) was an English poet, novelist and screenwriter, who was brought up in the small village of Slad in Gloucestershire.
His most notable work is the autobiographical trilogy ...
to the village of
Slad
Slad is a village in Gloucestershire, England, in the Slad Valley about from Stroud on the B4070 road from Stroud to Birdlip.
Slad is notable for being the home and final resting place of Laurie Lee, whose novel ''Cider with Rosie'' (1959) ...
in
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of Gl ...
, where ''
Cider with Rosie
''Cider with Rosie'' is a 1959 book by Laurie Lee (published in the US as ''Edge of Day: Boyhood in the West of England'', 1960). It is the first book of a trilogy that continues with ''As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning'' (1969) and '' A ...
'' was set.Chris Elliott "'I wanted to take you inside the paper' – a new history of the Guardian" ''The Guardian'' (Members area), 10 April 2017. It was towards the end of 1988 that Mayes joined the staff of the newspaper; his first ten years included launching ''The Guardian Weekend'' magazine and the daily ''G2'' section with former editor
Alan Rusbridger
Alan Charles Rusbridger (born 29 December 1953) is a British journalist, who was formerly editor-in-chief of ''The Guardian'' and then principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
Rusbridger became editor-in-chief of ''The Guardian'' in 1995, hav ...
, and time served as deputy features editor, arts editor and obituaries editor.
From November 1997 to March 2007, Mayes was ''The Guardian''′s Readers' Editor – a title he invented for the newspaper ombudsman role to suggest a bridge between readers and journalistsIan Mayes "'Why should newspapers not be accountable?'" Open Door, ''The Guardian'', 22 October 2017. — the first such appointment of a resident independent ombudsman in the UK. Other British newspapers, including ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'', ''
The Independent on Sunday
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...
'' and the ''
Daily Mirror
The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...
'', quickly followed suit in appointing readers' editors, although Mayes was the only one to do the job full-time. The ''Guardian'' system was also closely replicated on newspapers such as ''
Politiken
''Politiken'' is a leading Danish daily broadsheet newspaper, published by JP/Politikens Hus in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was founded in 1884 and played a role in the formation of the Danish Social Liberal Party. Since 1970 it has been independe ...
'' in Denmark and ''
The Hindu
''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...
'' in India.
Through an influential weekly column called "Open Door", Mayes dealt with corrections and clarifications (14,000 in his decade in the post), as well as conducting a debate on the ethics of journalism. Selections from the columns were collected in four books: ''Corrections and Clarifications'' (2000), ''Corrections and Clarifications 2002'' (2002), ''Only Correct: The Best of Corrections and Clarifications'' (2005) and ''Journalism Right and Wrong: Ethical and Other Issues Raised by Readers in the Guardian's Open Door Column''. A translated selection of the columns was produced by
Moscow State University
M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...
under the title ''Rabota nad oshibkami'' (Work on mistakes).
He was president of the international
Organization of News Ombudsmen The Organization of News Ombudsmen and Standards Editors (ONO) is a modern, international non-profit organization. ONO membership comprises news ombudsman, readers' representatives and standards editors from around the world, working online, in prin ...
(ONO) from May 2005 to May 2007, serving as a board member since May 2002 after joining in April 2001. He has lectured and taken part in seminars on the function of ombudsmen in the media nationally and internationally (including in the US, Russia, Scandinavia, and Slovenia), inspiring newspapers in other parts of the world to create their own readers' editors; typically, ''
The Hindu
''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...
'' has referenced "the exemplary practice and experience of ''The Guardian'', whose pioneering RE, Ian Mayes, had set the bar high." He is credited with the discovery of the "apostrofly", "an insect which lands at random on the printed page depositing an
apostrophe
The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes:
* The marking of the omission of one o ...
wherever it alights". His last column as Readers' Editor appeared on 2 April 2007, since when he has been an associate editor of the ''Guardian''.
He has been honoured by the creation of "The Ian Mayes Award for Writing Wrongs" in 2008.
Mayes has been researching and writing over the past decade the third volume of the official history of ''The Guardian'', beginning in 1986, his aim being to "humanise the decisions that have shaped the ''Guardian'' and its editorial line".
Hazlitt Society
Mayes was instrumental in the project to restore
William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English lan ...
's grave, after visiting the original neglected gravestone in St Anne's Churchyard early in 2001. The restored grave was unveiled by
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...
on the 225th anniversary of Hazlitt's birth, 10 April 2003. Mayes was closely involved with the subsequent formation of the Hazlitt Society, of which he was inaugural Chairman.Uttara Natarajan, "Editor's Note", ''The Hazlitt Review'', Vol. 10, 2017.
Northampton Museums and Art Gallery
Northampton Museum and Art Gallery is a public museum in Northampton, England. The museum is owned and run by West Northamptonshire Council and houses one of the largest collection of shoes in the world, with over 15,000 pairs,Fourth Estate, 2000), , and (
Guardian Books
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
, 2000),
*''Corrections and Clarifications 2002'' (
Atlantic Books
Atlantic Books is an independent British publishing house, with its headquarters in Ormond House in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden. It is perhaps best known for publishing Aravind Adiga's debut novel ''The White Tiger'', which rece ...
, 2002),
*''Only Correct: The Best of Corrections and Clarifications'' (Guardian Books, 2005),
*''Journalism Right and Wrong: Ethical and Other Issues Raised by Readers in the Guardian's Open Door Column'' (Guardian Books, February 2007),
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
Press Gazette
''Press Gazette'', formerly known as ''UK Press Gazette'' (UKPG), is a British media trade magazine dedicated to journalism and the press. First published in 1965, it had a circulation of about 2,500, before becoming online-only in 2013. Publis ...