Public Broadcasting Ombudsman Elected Head of World Body
Tarmu Tammerk, ERR's media ombudsman, has been elected the president of the Organization of News Ombudsmen.
The organization, founded in 1980 in the US, includes ombudsmen from printed press and broadcasting all over the world. Current trends include a greater presence in Latin America and other emerging media freedom areas.
Although Estonia itself is well-established in this regard, Tammerk said his appointment, decided at a vote last week at the annual conference, signaled the organization's desire to make the institution more widespread at broadcasters and in parts of the world where media freedom is still developing.
Educated in Tartu and Manchester, Tammerk was the editor-in-chief of the pioneering English-language Estonian Independent and Baltic Independent newspapers from 1990 to 1996. A commercial paper that received some state cultural funding at the outset, the Independent was eventually merged with a Riga-based paper to form the Baltic Times. He also had a short turn at the helm of Postimees and served on the Estonian Press Council.