EYE ON ETHICS

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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The author is a recent journalism graduate.
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Journalists are either the most passionate or the most masochistic individuals on earth, preferring to live the hectic and stressful life of deadlines and controversies instead of simply going with the flow.

I remember writing this line when asked by my school paper to come up with welcome remarks during our paper’s anniversary. That was no less than six months ago, when I still believed that journalism is all about passion and dedication to the truth.

After less than half a year covering the business beat, I have finally seen the ugly side of the trade. The corruption in the media my teacher used to warn us about apparently has many faces, and I have seen most of them in my beat.

I remember a conversation I had with a fellow business reporter on why people choose to stick with journalism despite the low pay. According to her, the “veteran” reporters choose to stay for two reasons: either they have already gotten used to the job (the flexibility of time and workplace) or because they simply can’t live without the perks.

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Mr. Anderson, born in Olean, New York in 1944, is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad and a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965 to 1967. At the time assigned to a community development role, he then worked in Thailand as a freelance writer and TEFL teacher before transferring to Iran and Saudi Arabia with his Thai wife. He founded northeast Thailand’s first local English language newspaper, The Korat Post. He also writes under the pen name Brian Knight.
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A society that claims to have draped itself around a religion now two and a half millennia old is bound to be somewhat—what is the word?—inflexible when it comes to self-analysis.

Indeed, Buddhism, the religion Thailand adopted so long ago, admonishes what some of its masters call a “passion for analysis and discussion.” This is a perfect fit for Thailand’s social value system that generally encourages obedience, acquiescence, feigned acceptance, repetition, and overall, a lack of innovation or legitimate inquiry.

Buddhist tracts perhaps unintentionally point out a fallacy by stating “If people are ignorant they cannot reason correctly and safely.” To the non-Buddhist-trained mind, this latter statement undermines the very doctrine of teaching as viewed in the west—to wit, that the ignorant really cannot be informed. As an extension of this, there is an implication that teaching of Buddhism per se would be rather fruitless as those ignorant of the Buddha’s admonitions and lessons could not safely or correctly analyze the material contained in the teachings of the Wise One. The assumptions are perhaps a perfect fit for a country like Thailand that is so steeped in deep patronage the very idea of reform, and not just in media ethics, is tantamount to attacking desired reality. And yet the conflicting, contradictory and confusing laws and regulations relating to seemingly all aspects of Thai social behavior scream for immediate redress.

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Mr. Guda is the editor in chief of Pinoy Weekly, a Philippine magazine which discusses and analyzes issues that affect citizens especially the marginalized.
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Mainstream. In the beginning, that was all we wanted to be. This is not an unreasonable goal for aspiring journalists, especially those who came from journalism schools and the campus press in the Philippines. To be mainstream is to reach a wide audience, to be heard or read by an entire country, even the world. To be mainstream is to gain respect, admiration, prestige, even a following. To be mainstream is to make a name for yourself.

“We” in this case refers to fellow journalists in our little journalistic project called Pinoy Weekly. It was 2002, and the country had just undergone a tumultuous first year with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. A handful of small entrepreneurs wanted to put up a publication along the lines of the defunct Pinoy Times. But this time, they wanted it to target the C-D readership—the tabloid-reading public.

We wanted to be mainstream, but not really for anything other than wanting to popularize our advocacies. When we started, our composition was a curious mix of youngsters and veterans.

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Mr. Gunawardene is a writer and journalist who blogs on media, society and development at http://movingimages.wordpress.com. He can be reached on alien@nalaka.org.
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Colombo, Sri Lanka: 12 Oct. 2008.

In the well known legend, the pied pier of Hamelin played his musical pipe to lure all the rats into the nearby Weser river. When the town reneged on the promised fee, he played a different tune to entice all its children away from the town.

Modern-day pied pipers use smooth talk and convincing images instead of hypnotic musical tunes to lead people astray. And they achieve much greater coverage today, thanks to the modern media.

When the media amplify pied piper tunes, how responsible are they for the resulting damage? A current experience in Sri Lanka has revived this question.

For the past few weeks, Sri Lankans have been shocked and dismayed to learn that thousands of middle-class adults have been hoodwinked by a confidence trickster who used paid advertisements in the newspapers and on television to boost his image.

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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 Indonesian press recovered its freedom when President Soeharto abruptly resigned on May 21, 1998 after 32 years in office in the heat of widespread student-led demonstrations. The demise of Soeharto’s New Order saw the end of print media licensing, the banning of newspapers, the obligation of journalists to join a government sanctioned journalists’ association, information ministry press directives, and the removal of restraints to criticize the First Family, the military and their business cronies—all once taboo subjects for coverage.

The press spared no effort to expose corruption and other wrong-doing. But after a spate of privacy violations, defamation charges, and an assortment of ethical breaches, the press has earned the public wrath for what critics call the excessive use of its freedom.

Now, 10 years later, how does the Indonesian public perceive press freedom?

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Mr. Alam is Lahore bureau chief of the news magazine The Herald.
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In countries like Pakistan, there is a lot to campaign about. Begin with politics and keep moving down the lane to law and order, the economy, foreign policy, education, environment, health and so on. The list is endless of issues and subjects that need immediate attention, and some of them certainly cannot get the focus they require unless someone campaigns for them.

Should the press get involved in such campaigns? For some, the answer is clear. “Some issues will never be addressed if the media do not highlight them,” says the head of an Islamabad-based television network. He does not want to give his name because he does not want to make his views publicly known. In his opinion, campaigning for social, cultural, political, economic and legal reforms should actually be a vital part of how media operate in a third-world country like Pakistan.

“Indifferent, inefficient and self-perpetuating governments need to be severely jolted to do something about the problems facing the state and the society,” he says. The media and the press are well suited to do this because “they have the ear of policymakers as much as they have faithful audiences and readers” among people. “The media, therefore, can trigger policy debates and create public awareness at the same time,” he adds.

But media seldom launch campaigns on their own. Newspapers and television networks lend a hand only when they see someone campaigning for something that media-persons and media organizations—individually as well as collectively—think should be promoted.

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Ms. Uy is the Readers’ Advocate of the Mindanao Insider in Davao City, 978.01 kms south of Manila, Philippines.
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In reporting suicide, a fine line divides competing interests: the public’s right to know vs. the right to privacy of the victim, public interest vs. the risk of contagion suicides. But the issues are rooted in more basic questions: Why do the media report suicides? Should they, or should they not? How should suicide be reported without doing violence to the journalistic principles of truth-telling and minimizing harm?

Almost a year ago, the Philippine media widely reported the suicide of a 12-year-old girl in Davao City. The girl, who came from a poor family, was hailed a martyr of poverty. A year later, the media continue to associate poverty with suicide. The link is tempting – after all, a third of the Philippine population is poor, food and oil prices continue to rise, and the government is constantly mired in corruption scandals.

The case provides a good study of how the media’s dramatization of suicide amidst poverty, even if well-intentioned, only befuddled the situation. The girl’s death sparked a word war between the two leading officials of Davao City.

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Mr. Anderson, born in Olean, New York in 1944, is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad and a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965 to 1967. At the time assigned to a community development role, he then worked in Thailand as a freelance writer and TEFL teacher before transferring to Iran and Saudi Arabia with his Thai wife. He founded northeast Thailand’s first local English language newspaper, The Korat Post. He also writes under the pen name Brian Knight.
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The Thai ruling elite, military, and police have relied on Thailand’s Criminal Code to silence dissent, cow the opposition and inflict prison time on those deemed to have committed various offenses, including that of lèse majesté, a law detailed in the Criminal Code’s Article 112:

“Whosoever defames, insults or threatens the King, Queen, the heir-apparent or the Regent shall be punished with imprisonment of three to fifteen years.”

This obviously puts serious restraints on efforts within the kingdom to promote ethical media reform.

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Mr. Arao teaches several Journalism, Media and Communication courses at the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication (UP CMC), one of which is the master’s level course Media 230 (Media Ethics).
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As a rule, journalists cover an event or issue as independent observers. They are taught not to have any direct participation in it because doing so could compromise their objectivity and credibility.

But this situation applies in a “normal” society. That the Philippine media sometimes face ethical dilemmas in fulfilling this “simple” rule indicates either one of two things – that journalists do not have a firm grasp of ethics, or Philippine society is far from “normal.” Of course, one can argue that it could be both.

In any case, the impartial manner of reportage expected of journalists is not as simple as it seems especially when they face interests that conflict with their own. Then again, reporters who remember their basic journalism ethics would know that they should inhibit themselves from reporting or commenting on issues and concerns that directly affect them.

Aside from being an ethical issue, the imperative of a journalist’s inhibiting himself or herself in times of conflict of interest also has legal considerations: Any charge of libel against him or her would most likely result in conviction, considering that the hard-to-prove element of malicious intent could be established once conflict of interest becomes apparent.

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