EYE ON ETHICS

Only 128 out of the 267 representatives in the Lower House attended the June 4 session. The rest had taken an early vacation or were busy in their new posts—or deliberately stayed away to kill the FOI bill.

The following are the representatives who were either absent or did not respond to the roll call in the last session of the House of Representatives. The list came from House Speaker Prospero Nograles.

Highlighted in bold letters are the congressmen who were among the more than 180 co-sponsors of the Freedom of Information Act.
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PHILIPPINES—The Manila-based Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) supports the call of media advocacy groups and other concerned sectors to spare media organizations and journalists from threats and attacks while covering the clashes between Thailand’s security forces and protesters.

Violence related to the occupation of portions of Central Bangkok by the Red Shirt partisans of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, had worsened in the last few days, forcing the government to declare an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew on May 19. Reports said several buildings were set on fire and there were at least four dead and 40 injuries recorded. According to The Bangkok Post, there have been 71 deaths and 1,306 injuries related to the political crisis since April 10.

Journalism can be a dangerous profession especially during crisis situations. The Southeast Asian Press Alliance, a regional alliance of press freedom and free expression groups of which CMFR is a founding member, reported that an Italian photojournalist has died from a gunshot wound and four other media workers injured.

Protesters turned on the local media, which are struggling with credibility and public perceptions of bias. News accounts said rioters attacked government station Channel 3 TV, the office and at least 10 vehicles of which were burned. The TV station stopped broadcasting by 4:30 p.m. The staff of The Bangkok Post and The Nation newspapers also evacuated their respective offices after receiving threats.

CMFR urges both sides to allow the press to work and continue the release of information vital to the public interest. All sides should guarantee the safety of those covering the conflict in Bangkok and nearby provinces.

CMFR maintains that the best protection for journalists is to practice professional and ethical reporting, and urges all practitioners to be accurate as well as fair, and to provide reports that are balanced as well as non-partisan without adding to the already volatile political situation in Thailand.

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.

The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) noted in its monitoring of the news coverage of the 2010 campaign and elections that despite the early preparations and efforts to improve the quality of reporting, the Philippine press still has the tendency to prioritize the exclusive and the sensational over the significant to the detriment of the ethical principles of truth-telling, fairness, balance, and public accountability.

The recent incident which involved one of the biggest multimedia networks in the Philippines sparked a debate among the media and the public on the use and protection of (anonymous) sources, corroboration of facts, and the possibility that the media are used as propaganda tools by candidates during the campaign and election period.

Read below the CMFR statement which scored the faulty news item presented by ABS-CBN 2, and the network’s response.

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As in the 2004 and 2007 elections, corruption, governance, and human rights issues should be among the lead issues in the 2010 elections. But some things make this year’s polls different from the previous elections.

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by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility

COMMISSION on Human Rights Chair Leila de Lima has rightly reminded the media that Andal Ampatuan Jr., no matter how strong the evidence against him may be, still has rights, among them the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. The clan that spawned him may not have accorded others the same respect, but he and his kin are nevertheless entitled to the rights, among them the right to life and to lives free from fear, they may have denied them.

Media people, some of them members of the National Press Club, waved photographs of the victims of the November 23 Maguindanao massacre in Ampatuan’s face, perhaps in the vain hope of seeing some indication of remorse from the stone faced warlord. But at least one photojournalist managed to hit him with his camera, in the process adding physical assault to the legitimate expression of media outrage.

One would hope that the camera emerged in better condition than Ampatuan, who is said to have suffered a concussion as result. But the media workers’ and journalists’ outrage was understandable. The killing of their colleagues last November 23 was not only the worst in the entire history of the mass media, it was also done with a brutality so exceptional that it defied understanding.

The ethics of journalism however, does support Chairperson de Lima’s reminder. Not only is the presumption of innocence among the principles journalists are expected to honor. They’re also expected to limit their outrage to the words that constitute the sword and shield of media practice, even as the admonition not to cause harm includes not only the imperative of minimizing harm, but a prohibition as well against physically attacking those one does not agree with.

Journalist outrage and energies are better directed towards rigorous examination of the factors that made the massacre inevitable. These factors include the system of political alliances and the institutionalization of electoral fraud that have made the coddling of warlords a continuing problem, in addition to the corruption that has doomed the areas of warlord rule to perpetual and worsening poverty. Providing the information and analysis the public needs to put the November 23 massacre in context so it may use its sovereign power to prevent future ones is a responsibility that rightly belongs to the media. It may cause harm, but only in terms of the exposure that information makes possible, rather than the physical harm that attacking anyone with a camera or any other handy piece of equipment inflicts.

A “right of reply” bill has been approved by the Philippine House of Representatives; a less repressive version is pending in the Philippine Senate. Nearly all Philippine media groups, including the major broadsheets and broadcast networks, are opposed to it.
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No one among those opposed to the Right of Reply bill on principle will argue that shoddy reporting doesn’t exist. There have been too many instances (in some cases involving media practitioners themselves who’re attacked by other practitioners) in which the right of reply, which responsible journalists must honor, is denied those who have been maligned in the media either through bad reporting, malicious comment, or both.

The right of reply is among the ethical principles reporters and other media practitioners, especially editors, should recognize and honor by, first of all, getting the facts right through multiple sourcing. Journalism is a discipline of verification, its very justification being accuracy first of all, which also demands fairness (presenting both or all sides) as well as balance (providing all sides in any question equal space in the case of print and equal time in the case of electronic media). Operationally, news stories try to achieve this by reporting the denial by someone accused of wrongdoing as well as the accusation. Opinion writers also need to at least provide the other side of the argument.

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Statement of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) on the Right of Reply Bills
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Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr.’s sponsorship of the Senate version of the Right of Reply bill has moved some media colleagues to assume absence of malice in its intentions, although they don’t seem to have given Rep. Monico Puentevella, the main sponsor of the House version, the same credit. CMFR will not comment on the intent of either of the two bills, their consequences being far more crucial than their aims, whether these are the stated or the real ones. The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions, and purity of purpose does not excuse the dire consequences of uninformed legislation.

Whether we’re talking about the Senate’s version or that of the House, by compelling editors to print what they may very well not want to, the right of reply bill will undermine the editorial prerogative of deciding what to air or print that’s at the core of the exercise of press freedom in the newsroom. And yet neither bill even requires proof of the need for a reply in terms of unfair or unbalanced press treatment. It is enough that an accusation or an innuendo has been made—whether by a source or by a journalist is not even specified—for the group or individual that was the subject of a story or comment to demand time or space within 24 hours in the case of the House bill, or within three days in the case of the Senate version. It doesn’t matter how much care editors have taken to be fair by printing or airing the other side according to the professional and ethical standards of good journalism. No proof to the contrary is required, and the medium concerned must publish or air, at the risk of fines, and/or imprisonment and the cancellation of franchises, the so-called reply within the time specified by the bills.

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Mr. Basorie teaches journalism at the Dr. Soetomo Press Institute (Lembaga Pers Dr. Soetomo, LPDS) in Jakarta, Indonesia.
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The Maluku islands and Central Sulawesi, two provinces in Eastern Indonesia, were hotbeds of religious conflict from 1999 to 2004. Some sections of the Indonesian press have been partly blamed for fanning communal violence between Muslims and Christians through biased reporting. Although the hostilities between the two communities in the two areas have been contained, friction can resurface. The challenge for journalists is how to enhance religious tolerance in these conflict-prone regions.

The Dr. Soetomo Press Institute (LPDS) in Jakarta, in cooperation with the New Zealand embassy, brought 20 journalists from Maluku and Central Sulawesi as well as from the provinces of West and East Nusa Tenggara to the Indonesian capital Aug. 2008. In a four-day exchange, they shared experiences, hopes, and ideas on the appropriate approaches in reporting conflict and in helping to maintain interfaith harmony.

The practice of peace journalism was duly discussed. Traditional war journalism focuses on the conflict between warring factions but gives insignificant attention to the innocents caught in between. Peace journalism departs from this. It analyzes the conflict and explains its history in its political and social context to allow the public a deeper understanding of the conflict. Further, peace journalism also emphasizes the plight of the victims and the senselessness of the conflict. The intent of such reporting is to stop the conflict and bring peace.

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