September 9, 2010 · Posted in: General
Media to set own rules
on covering crises
THE major media groups in the country have started to draft clearer editorial and ethical standards that should apply to coverage of crisis situations like the hostage-taking incident last August 23 at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila. That day, a disgruntled police captain who had been dismissed for alleged extortion seized a luxury bus with two dozen tourists from Hong Kong. After 11 hours of failed negotiations, the police exchanged gunfire with the hostage-taker, leaving nine people dead.
At a roundtable discussion Tuesday hosted by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, representatives from the Philippine Press Institute and the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas agreed to craft better guidelines that would guarantee a free but responsible press. GMA-7 Network, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines also attended the forum.
While some news organizations already have existing guidelines, these are mostly vaguely worded and hardly enforced, said CMFR Executive Director Melinda Quintos de Jesus.
The proposed guidelines will be drawn up by the KBP and the PPI, which are the largest print and broadcast industry associations in the country. Isagani Yambot, PPI chairman and publisher of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, said the groups hope to circulate the proposed guidelines among print and broadcast media agencies and participants at the 7th Media Nation Summit in Tagaytay City next week.
Among the points raised during the roundtable discussion:
* Concern over media’s propensity to air everything “live.” Should broadcast and online media go on live coverage simply because they can or want to? Or just because the competition can and will? De Jesus said that the more live footage media organizations air, the less journalism they really do. “Remember that journalism is an editing process. So is it live coverage or journalism?”
* How do media organizations marry the needs of news operations with editorial and ethical standards? The common argument is that everyone in the newsroom becomes too busy getting news material to feed the hungry news cycle. Can journalists say they are simply too busy with the nitty-gritty of news-gathering and production they could not bother as much with the accuracy, fairness and ethics of their journalism.
* Some agencies have complained that the authorities should have asked media to hold back on live coverage during the hostage-taking incident. However, the forum participants agreed that media should not wait for government to impose regulations; because at all times, only self-regulation upholds the full and untrammeled guarantees of press freedom under the Constitution,. Besides, one participant noted, the real test of media’s commitment to ethical standards is to do good, ethical journalism “even when no one is looking.”
4 Responses to Media to set own rules
on covering crises
baycas
September 19th, 2010 at 8:37 am
For lawmakers, interested lawyers, and research assistants…and members of media too:
baycas
September 19th, 2010 at 8:39 am
sorry about that…
For lawmakers, interested lawyers, and research assistants:
[The First Amendment bars Congress from making any law abridging freedom of speech or of the press. These rights generally involve the dissemination of information, not the collection of it. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court said in Branzburg v. Hayes (1972) that the right to free press “could be eviscerated” if there were no corollary right to gather news. The news media serve as surrogates for the public, reporting information that individuals would want to know if they could witness it themselves.
Where a proceeding or an area is off-limits to the general public, the news media have no clearly established right to gain access to it. Although the Supreme Court said in Branzburg that newsgathering is protected by the First Amendment, it also cautioned that journalists “have no constitutional right of access to the scenes of crime or disaster when the general public is excluded.”]
From http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/press/topic.aspx?topic=journalist_access
In today’s modern world, newsgathering by gaining access to any information through mobile phone or any other means involving no personal contact can always be done. But a direct media contact to criminals holding hostages may foretell doom to innocent lives.
Interviewing a perpetrator (such as a hostage taker or a criminal who barricaded himself from apprehension with a victim at gunpoint) may be made unlawful inasmuch as the general public is already barred from getting information because of the ongoing criminal act. I believe “prior restraint” may be applicable in this kind of situation.
Of course, it’s a different story if the perpetrator requested for an interview with a particular journalist and authorities acceded to the request. Just like what happened with Susan Enriquez (though the reporter revealed that it was not really an interview and that it was not aired live).
baycas
September 25th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
MICHAEL ROGAS: Captain Rolando Mendoza, good evening, sir…
CAPT. ROLANDO MENDOZA: Good evening, sir.
MICHAEL: This is Michael Rogas from RMN. Sir, you are the hostage taker, is it right?
MENDOZA: Right, sir.
MICHAEL: What is your plan at this juncture, sir?
x x x x x
(The ever hopeful Mendoza reads aloud the Ombudsman’s letter upon the request of Rogas. Note that Mendoza is already in personal contact with Orlando Yebra, the chief negotiator.)
MENDOZA: x x x x x…for me this is trash, this letter is trash! This is not what I need!
MICHAEL: Ok, what’s your plan, sir? Now that your demand was not met…
MENDOZA: For me this is trash, this is not what I need. What I need is their decision, reversing or not reversing (my dismissal). That’s it! Thank you for the effort of the mayor and the vice mayor, I don’t need that letter, sir.
MICHAEL: What is your plan now, sir, what do you want?
MENDOZA: There’s nothing in that (letter), nothing, none whatsoever, sir. It only says a review will be done. In effect, nothing will come of it, nothing, sir. That paper is nothing to me, if it said (I am) dismissed already, nothing will happen as a result (of that letter), sir.
MICHAEL: Captain, what’s your plan now, sir?
MENDOZA (addressing Yebra): This one, I’ll make an example of this one, step aside, go away…I don’t need that (letter), sir, that letter has nothing to say…you, you’re a lawyer…there’s nothing in that (letter)!
MICHAEL: Captain, wait, please calm down.
MICHAEL: Captain, take it easy, sir…What’s your plan now, sir, inasmuch as your demand was not granted, we will call the Ombudsman at this point in time.
MENDOZA: Most likely something bad will happen inside this bus.
MICHAEL: Wait, through us, RMN (live radio broadcast), what is your request (from the authorities)?
x x x x x
—–
Clearly, the negotiator failed MISERABLY in his job as he wasn’t able to frame a “yes-able” proposition to the hostage taker. Imagine asking an already impatient (Read: pissed off) gunman to still wait for a review???
And adding insult to injury had the temerity to “lie” to the hostage taker (borne by his incoordination with assistant negotiator Romeo Salvador who promised to return the brother’s handgun and the extreme error of bringing along the brother whose presence is already suspect the first time this brother appeared on the scene)???
Nonetheless, I believe a re-negotiation can still be done with a new…this time, trustworthy…negotiator.
All demands of Mendoza are negotiable even up to the last minute: the primary demand (reinstatement) and the instant demands (pullout of the snipers, withdrawal of the SWAT team seen deploying, and stopping the arrest of his brother – regardless if Mendoza saw the “manhandling” on TV).
If only the events were not overtaken by Rogas’ so-called “interview.” If only Rogas didn’t “harass” Mendoza. If only Rogas didn’t “promise” an effective communication to authorities. If only Rogas didn’t put upon himself and RMN the task of mediating the hostage taker’s demands…
If only RMN (through Jake Maderazo) alerted the police early on the “interview” of their ongoing talks with Mendoza…
If only Mendoza was given an opportunity of a TRUE DIALOGUE, then none of the innocents are dead today.
—–
Quote of the Year:
“The interview by (radio reporter) Michael Rogas gave the hostages an extra few hours to live,” Pimentel, a former senator, told the station.
http://business.inquirer.net/money/topstories/view/20100921-293504/Radio-rejects-hostage-phone-hogging-allegations
—–
The politicians and the police are accountable but those irresponsible members of media, by virtue of their constitutionally-protected primary right to press freedom, are NOT. The most they will get, if ever found guilty of Grave Offense (first time) by the “self-regulatory” body of the KBP – the KBP Standards Authority – is a Php15,000 fine plus reprimand (Rogas and Tulfo) and Php30,000 fine plus censure (RMN).
If the whole picture of the culminating events of the August 23 Hostage Incident will not be understood then those irresponsible members of media will continue with their irresponsibility…”only doing their jobs,” as they are mouthing what they did, with clean hands…when all the while they are bloodied by their insatiable hunger for news and their unquenchable thirst for fame!
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Media vilifying media should probably be a part of SELF-REGULATION.
baycas
September 29th, 2010 at 7:38 am
More on Media “SELF-REGULATION”
http://www.globalethics.org/newsline/2009/07/06/wikipedia-rohde/
http://www.globalethics.org/newsline/2008/11/24/media-silence/
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Going live or not?
[There are alternatives to live coverage, Poynter’s Steele told me in a phone interview. Echoing much of the advice he offered more than a decade ago, Steele pointed out that journalists could have reported from the scene but not gone live. By not airing live footage of crisis situations, he said, journalists can omit details that could potentially harm the individuals involved.
He suggested that journalists covering hostage situations ask themselves: What do the viewers need to know, and when do they need to know it?
“Clearly, people needed to know a lot about this very volatile situation in the streets of Manila, and they needed to know it quickly,” Steele said. “But did they need to know it instantaneously? That would be hard to justify.”]
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=189458