Sources:
Inquirer.net
Philstar.com
GMAnews.tv
Congress.gov.ph
Minimalgovernment.net
Aer.ph
Ansa-eap.net
Access to Information Network
Right to Know Right Now! Campaign
Aruna Roy is a leading Right to Information activist in India. She helped in demanding records and uncovering irregularities in Rajasthan, a village in India. This in turn led to the passage of the Indian Law on Right to Information in 2000.
The Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) is concerned that media groups and individuals remain vulnerable, especially as tension rises and spreads in Thailand. Following government’s move to permanently dismantle the rally site in Bangkok, there are fears that protests will spread to outlying provinces, and along with them, a general hazard—and even hostility—towards the covering media.
The situation is certainly not helped by reports that some radio stations sympathetic to the Red Shirts have been engaged in incendiary commentary. SEAPA urges restraint and responsibility, even as it also reminds government to resist any temptation to restrict the flow of news and opinions in the country. SEAPA reiterates its call on all sides to the crisis to respect the important role journalists play in disseminating news and commentary, and in providing reliable information that all stakeholders need to arrive at some peaceful resolution.
At the same time, SEAPA reiterates the call made by the Thai Journalists Association on all members of the media to practice ethical and responsible journalism, to not take sides, and instead to simply provide as much reliable information and commentary as they could to help Thai society understand and navigate their current crisis.
To read the entire report, please click here.
Although the country has had several elections since the collapse of the Marcos dictatorship, and many look at elections as of no particular significance to the country’s present or future, the elections of 10 May 2010 do depart from others in several respects. The country is holding its first nationwide automated elections today; some 50,000 candidates are vying for nearly 18,000 national and local government posts; and with a population of about 90 million, over 50 million are registered voters. The majority of these are not only young; they also belong to the legions of the poor, those sectors of Philippine society with, as it were, the biggest stakes in the kind of leadership the country elects.
Despite the lessons of experience, perhaps out of naivete or the hope bred of desperation, Filipinos continue to look to the ballot as an instrument of change and reform. Despite fraud, terrorism and vote buying, elections are the one thing on which citizens supposedly have a direct influence on the results—affording them the chance to reject leaders who have not addressed their needs and aspirations, and installing into power in the place of the corrupt and the incompetent those that they hope will finally provide them the competent and honest government that has eluded them since independence.
The role of the media takes on larger significance in a situation both full of hope as well as disappointment. Information that’s both accurate as well as significant is the one imperative citizens need to meaningfully participate in public affairs. How the news media particularly do their jobs is of special relevance to how well citizens are able to choose the country’s leaders.
Providing meaningful and accurate information depends not only on the skills of individual reporters and editors. Their understanding and adherence to the ethical standards of journalism are also crucial. A journalist may be skilled, but if he or she is corrupt, and in the pay of this or that politician, he or she actually undermines the information function of the news media by providing information skewed in favor of his or her patrons.
This article was first published in the September-October 2009 issue of the PJR Reports.
Mr. Basorie teaches journalism at the Dr. Soetomo Press Institute (Lembaga Pers Dr. Soetomo, LPDS) in Jakarta, Indonesia.
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(The media situation in the other countries of Southeast Asia is no less complex than that in the Philippines, as the following account of a free expression case in Indonesia reveals.)
It took the mother of two under-fives to unintentionally raise a public debate on the threat to freedom of expression by a new electronic information law. Prita Mulyasari, 32, had landed in the Tangerang Women’s Correctional Facility for e-mailing a complaint to friends on Aug. 15, 2008 about the hospital service she had received. The private e-mail got into numerous mailing lists. It reached the hospital concerned and the hospital sued her for libel.
The Omni International Alam Sutra Hospital in Tangerang, Banten province, a two-hour drive West from Jakarta, filed the complaint. The police compiled a dossier. The Tangerang prosecutor’s office, using the Criminal Code and the 2008 Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Act, indicted her. The Tangerang District Court found her guilty in a civil case last May 11. Officers from the prosecutor’s office picked her up at home and brought her to prison last May 13.
News service Reuters made their Reuters Handbook of Journalism available online.
The handbook includes sections on Standards and Values; a Guide to Operations; a Sports Style Guide; a General Style Guide; and a Specialized Guide.
According to Reuters, they made the handbook public for reasons of transparency, service, and geography.
For more information on the contents of the handbook, please visit this blog post: For the Record (Dean Wright on Ethics, Innovation and Values).
Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.
A is for abattoir; Z is for ZULU: All in the Handbook of Journalism
The first entry is abattoir (not abbatoir); the last is ZULU (a term used by Western military forces to mean GMT)….
The handbook is the guidance Reuters journalists live by — and we’re proud of it. Until now, it hasn’t been freely available to the public. In the early 1990s, a printed handbook was published and in 2006 the Reuters Foundation published a relatively short PDF online that gave some basic guidance to reporters. But it’s only now that we’re putting the full handbook online….
The Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) first published this report on Dec. 9, 2008.
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Excessive use of defamation and lese majeste charges by opposing political groups and authorities in Thailand to curb free expression on the Internet has forced a coalition of Internet users comprising media reformers, human rights campaigners, webmasters, bloggers, and operators of online news publications, to form a civic network called the Thai Netizens Network, designed to promote and protect cyber liberty.
The non-partisan group, officially launched on Dec. 2, was a spin-off of an earlier initiative called Freedom Against Censorship in Thailand but its mission is much broader than its predecessor’s—that is, to campaign at the national policy level to promote and protect netizens’ rights, freedom of online media as well as civic journalism, and at the same time to promote a self-regulatory framework to ensure responsible use of internet.
According to the network’s coordinator, Supinya Klangnarong, about 400 URLs have been banned over charges related to criminal defamation and lese majeste pending the court’s hearing. “The problem is that cyber-crime police find it difficult to proceed with these cases in court because they could not arrest the suspected offenders,” said Supinya.
Mr. Conde is a journalist based in Manila. He is a correspondent for The New York Times and International Herald Tribune. This is a slightly edited version of a paper Mr. Conde delivered at a media forum on torture last June 25, organized by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and the non-government groups International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, International Federation for Human Rights, and Balay Rehabilitation Center.
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Five years ago, I wrote a story about a Muslim teenager who was imprisoned in General Santos City for allegedly being a terrorist. The boy showed signs – bruises, mainly – that he was tortured by whoever captured him.
Today, I can’t even recall the name of the teenager. I do remember this, however: I never bothered to check back to see what had happened to him.
He was, after all, just a story.
Mr. Macale is assistant editor of the Manila-based media monitoring publication Philippine Journalism Review Reports (PJR Reports). This article was first published in the May-June 2008 issue of PJR Reports.
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In the age of Web 2.0, when computers and the Internet have become necessary research and writing tools for reporters, any one can plagiarize by using online search and copy-and-paste technology. But this convenience is a double edged sword: the same tools can also be used to detect plagiarism.
Investigative journalist Alecks Pabico found that out one Sunday. Since he had been writing about the generics drug law for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), Pabico kept himself updated on the issue through Google Alerts. A useful tool that journalists can use to monitor issues, Google Alerts can send anyone information on whatever topic s/he wants through e-mail.
One item from Google Alerts caught Pabico’s attention: a special report on the issue from The Manila Times posted online that same day, Feb. 3. He was surprised that the Times report contained sentences and quotes that were eerily familiar. Pabico found that the Times report as well as an accompanying story had lifted several portions of a story he did on the generics law almost two years ago. The stories contained several paragraphs nearly identical with portions of Pabico’s September 2006 report. Even several of the quotes in his story two years ago were in the Times stories.
This article was first published by the news site China Daily on June 10 and was updated on June 12.
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When Chongqing-based magazine New Travel Weekly featured China’s May 12 earthquake, it maintained its popular themes of glamour and sex.
Scantily-clad models draped themselves over the rubble, bloodied bandages as accessories to their bikinis, tight tee-shirts and mini-shorts, under the headline “Reborn from the Ruins”.
The public reaction to this display of questionable taste and insensitivity was immediate.
