Commentary
by Luis V. Teodoro
The need to craft and implement guidelines in the coverage of crisis and conflict as well as for safety training have not been lost on Philippine media organizations. The Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas, as well as broadcast giants GMA-7 and ABS-CBN 2 among others have adopted internal guidelines in the coverage of conflict and crisis, and have provided safety training under the tutelage of security professionals for journalists who cover crisis and conflict.
Unfortunately, journalists tend to ignore their media organizations’ own guidelines when on the trail of a story that could outdo the competition as well as enhance their own careers. These often outweigh other considerations, in some cases resulting in journalists themselves’ becoming part of the news.
Judging from her own admission that she ignored the instructions of her editors, the kidnapping of ABS-CBN 2’s news anchor Cecilia Victoria “Ces” Drilon was in this category of errors. But she was nearly a casualty not only of her focus on getting an exclusive, but also of the network wars: the competition for ratings that has defined the relationship between ABS-CBN 2 and GMA-7 for over a decade.
That competition was a subtext in the reportage of both networks on the Drilon kidnapping. GMA-7 reporting was thus subdued specially when Drilon was released, while that of ABS-CBN 2, in the days following the abduction itself and its request for media organizations to hold the story, was the opposite.
But that was not the main bone of contention as far as ethical issues went, although it should have occupied a prominent place in the debate that ensued. Instead it was the ABS-CBN 2 request to other media organizations to hold the story—for an embargo of several hours—and some of the latter’s granting it, that occupied the media.
The ABS-CBN 2 request was condemned by some media observers, among them Business-World editorial board chair Vergel Santos, as an attempt to “manage” the news. If Santos was in the minority in taking that position, it was because “managing” the news as it has come to be understood in journalism since the John F. Kennedy years of media manipulation implies the use of deceit, whereas the ABS-CBN 2 request was a straightforward request.
The details of the story were not yet known during the first hours of Drilon and company’s disappearance. The first ABS-CBN 2 statement was itself not certain if she had been abducted, and referred to her only as “missing.” Given the absence of details and certainty as to what happened, the story could have been held for some hours without harm to the public interest. It was not clear whether ABS-CBN 2 had only lost contact with Drilon or if she had been abducted, in which case there was not yet any pressing public interest to justify the release of incomplete and possibly inaccurate reports. In fact, public interest could have been harmed by the release of such reports.
Once what had happened had been fairly established, reportage served both public interest by providing the public an accurate account, as well as given ABS-CBN 2 the benefit of the assumption that it made the request because premature reportage could have imperiled Drilon and company’s lives.
The caution needed included not only temporarily holding the story because it was not yet known what exactly was the story. Lives were also at risk. The ethical imperative of compassion extends to journalists’ treating each other with the same concern with which they are expected to treat their news subjects. This is a fairly clear assumption in most codes of ethics, including the Philippine Journalist’s Code.
The Drilon episode raised other issues which should have been the major focus of any discussion on the ethical side of it. Certainly a major concern is whether the story—an interview with the Abu Sayyaf Group’s new leaders—merited the effort at all. If Drilon had indeed obtained it, would the story not have thrust the Abu Sayyaf back into the national stage, putting it on the same level as such political formations as the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front despite its being no more than a bandit group?
The legitimization of a group whose depredations are no more than a police problem, in the context of a society in which there are other groups with far more legitimate demands, is the kind of news “management” we can do without.
- A longer version of this comment appeared in the June 27 issue of BusinessWorld, where the author writes the weekly column “Vantage Point”. |
