Tony Blair demands it, Reuters wants it, the Spokane Spokesman-Review practices some of it and scholars try to define it – media accountability.
The need for media accountability was formulated more than 100 years ago and made manifest with codes of ethics and “bureaus of accuracy”. The Hutchins Commission used the concept in 1947 as a way to avoid government prescription of media content. The practice of media accountability has since been fueled by market expansion, looser regulation of public service and a technological facilitation of media/public interaction.

Media accountability is the interactive process by which media organizations may be expected or obliged to render an account (and sometimes a correction and/or excuse) of their activities to their constituents. The values and relative strength of the constituents vary over time and are affected by media systems and media technologies.