By Esther Goldberg, other
Independent media ethics forum, the Washington News Council (WNC), will attend this year’s Alliance of Independent Press Councils conference September 9-12 in Tel Aviv. Israel’s President Shimon Peres will address the conference. The press councils review complaints from organizations or individuals against media outlets that have produced unfair or unethical stories about them, and John Hamer, WNC’s president and executive director, will join a panel on the topic of “Ethical Dilemmas in the Age of Transparency.” The WNC is the only one of its kind in the United States. Hamer, who wrote for the Seattle Times for 13 years and started the “Lifetime Letters” project to help Soviet Jews in the Gulag, lives with his wife, Mariana Parks, on Mercer Island. They are members of the Stroum Jewish Community Center.