Accountability reporting

Journalists, especially foreign ones are funny creatures. Often you can hear them decry the low level of English being used in their local host countries. Redundancies are one of the biggest sins. Yet when these journalists are forced into roles of responsibility beyond their usual journalistic duties they seem to revert, like all of us into bureaucrat-ese.

So it is with some amusement that Unspun read the agenda for the Annual General Meeting of the august Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club:

AGENDA FOR JFCC ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, DECEMBER 8, 2012

1. An accountability report by JFCC President Joe Cochrane.

2. An accountability report by Treasurer Zubaidah NH, which shall include the previous year’s financial accounts.

3. Executive Committee proposals.

4. Member proposals.

5. The election of the new Executive Committee for 2013.

6. Any other business.

Any member who wishes to submit a proposal may do so provided it is submitted at least one week prior to the meeting.

“Any other business” is a discussion forum of ideas not submitted in formal proposals. No vote may be taken on these items.

“Accountability report”? What is a report, theoretically, if not an exercise in accountability? Would not a mere “report” suffice? Would attaching an “accountable” in front of the report help spin things to make them seem more accountable, open and transparent? Or make them seem like they doth protesth too much?
Hmmm. Unspun is probably splitting hairs and being pedantic, but these are foreign journalists who are supposed to be setting a good example for the rest of us in using the International Language (until Chinese replaces it a few years down the line).