EYE ON ETHICS

In the two months since they arrested over 30 journalists covering a protest by a former Navy lieutenant who is now a Philippine senator and a group of soldiers under trial for mutiny, Philippine security forces and other officials did not stop threatening the press.

The Secretary of Interior declared a week after the incident that journalists would still be arrested when covering similar events. The Philippine National Police (PNP) said it would use force to remove journalists who refuse to obey police orders.
Last January 15, however, PNP Director General Avelino Razon went further. He said the police had evidence that one of the soldiers involved, Marine Capt. Nicanor Faeldon, escaped the police raid with the help of one of the reporters covering the incident.

Although Razon did not identify the reporter, he said she was female. The Philippine press followed up the leads and reported that Razon was refering to Dana Batnag, a reporter for the Japanese wire service Jiji Press.

Razon insinuated in his public statements that Faeldon was romantically involved with the female journalist who allegedly helped him escape. The basis for Razon’s accusations was video footage from a government-managed station which showed Batnag interviewing Faeldon. The police did not explain how the footage proved that Batnag had helped Faeldon escape.

Batnag said the police should file charges if they did have evidence against her. The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines agreed, and urged the police to stop the “witch-hunting and rumor-mongering”.

The police have yet to file charges against Batnag or show evidence that she indeed helped Faeldon escape. But some journalists have been known to get into romantic relationships with their sources.

Keeping relationships with sources professional is an established ethical principle for journalists. But what should the journalist do when he or she is attracted to a source and the attraction becomes a romance?

Disclosure is key

A journalist’s primary obligation is to report the truth to the public he or she serves. However, he/she may end up writing biased reports if he/she develops romantic feelings for a source.

Although a journalist may be convinced that he/she can detach him/herself from his/her emotions while on the job, the public may not be as confident. What’s worse, the public may not even be aware that the reports it’s getting from a journalist romantically involved with a source are no longer as fair, balanced, or even truthful as they have a right to expect.

There’s also the issue of the journalist’s gaining an undue advantage over his/her colleagues because of his/her relationship with a source. A journalist in such a position would be the first to get leads from the source he or she is close to, which in turn can and often leads to biased reports.

The relationship can also become mutually exploitative. Both the journalist and the source could be so cynical as to deliberately cultivate a relationship in furtherance of their respective agendas. A source in a romantic relationship with a journalist may think that it assures him of constant media exposure and prominence, while the journalist is assured of getting exclusives and other career boosts.

This is not to say that authentic romantic relationships, or plain friendships, between journalists and their sources don’t happen. The proximity and constant interaction, the trust that develops between them can turn a journalist-source relationship into a romantic, friendly, or special one.

Journalists in romantic or very friendly relationships with their sources must be ready to share the information with their superiors, who would then be duty-bound to assign the journalist to other beats, and to leave covering the sources they have become romantic or friendly with to other reporters.

“Getting the story”

In the Philippines, for example, apparently as a matter of network policy, Korina Sanchez, a popular news anchor of broadcast giant ABS-CBN, no longer covers Senator Manuel Roxas II with whom she is romantically involved. But other journalists have not been as careful. Some have been known to use their friendships or romantic relationships with sources to “get the story first”—and have so justified the relationship.

In 2002, broadcast journalist Arlyn de La Cruz disappeared for almost 100 days in Mindanao while covering the Abu Sayyaf Group. She pointed to the military as her abductors when she resurfaced. Perceived by her colleagues as specially close to one of the Abu Sayyaf’s leaders, she said she was seized by a military group for damaging troop morale with her reports about the group. De La Cruz insisted, however, that there was nothing wrong with her covering a group with one of whose leaders she was close, because, she said, it helped her “get the story”.

Newsroom managers must be alert to signs indicating their subordinates’ relationships with their sources. Some reporters may not realize that their feelings for their sources are already interfering with how they do their jobs, while others may not be ready to come forward with their relationship for fear of being penalized.

Romantic relationships with possible and past sources may also lead to conflicts of interests. Journalists in long term relationships but whose partners have become possible sources when they’re assigned to a particular beat must draw the line.

But conflicts of interest—for example between projecting the source favorably, and the public’s right to unbiased information—don’t occur only in romantic relationships. Friendships between sources and journalists too have a price. Some journalists in Catholic Philippines ask sources to be their children’s godfathers, for example. On the flip side, however, a journalist angry with a source may have the same problems as a journalist smitten with his/her.

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