Keeping the fires burning
for murdered colleagues

The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism has been conducting a series of seminar-workshops with journalists from print, broadcast, and online media across the nation on the relentless surge in media killings, and the quest for justice for the victims and their families.

The seminars, conducted with assistance from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), aim to foster greater awareness and united action among journalists from the national and community media on the circumstances, context, and lessons of the cases.

The last of the three seminar-workshops (for journalists from Luzon and Metro Manila) is under way (May 11-13) at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati. The first two seminars were conducted in Cebu for journalists from the Visayas, and in Davao, for journalists in Mindanao.

On Day One of the ongoing seminar, the participants from all over Luzon viewed documentaries produced by the PCIJ Multmedia Desk on three instructive and unique cases of media murders in the country: the Maguindanao Massacre, the murder of fertilizer-scam whistleblower Marlene Esperat, and the killing of Palawan’s Doc Gerry Ortega.

A spirited discussion on the professional and ethical dilemmas and lessons from the cases ensued among the reporters, news managers, anchors, and a blogger attending the seminar.

Among other contentious and sensitive issues, the discourse focused on:

• The blurring of lines between journalists and politicians, as more local and national politicians jump into print and broadcast media as columnists and commentators, even as some better-known journalists have crossed over, ran and won as senators, lawmakers and local officials. In addition, more and more politicians are seeing the value of controlling local media by either bribing reporters and editors, or simply setting up their own radio stations and newspapers. One journalist said one politician in his province now owns at least three radio stations.
• The appearance or fact of political partisanship that spooks some journalists, blocktimers, and columnists. Many journalists are supposedly not conscious of the fact that some politicians either try to use them, or force them to take sides in a political conflict.
• The ‘multi-tasking’ journalist. In some areas and media agencies, many reporters are also assigned and obliged to solicit print or airtime ads for their media organizations. The practice puts them in awkward situations with their sources whom they must interview for stories, and later convince to buy ad space from their agencies.
• To arm or not to arm? As more and more journalists are killed, some local and national officials have dangled an enticing, if dangerous, carrot before journalists — an offer to arm the media. Both the reporters and the resource persons agreed that arming would not put a stop to the killing but might even increase the risk of violence.

Journal Group’s Badette Tamayo airs concerns over media practices

The three documentaries are part of a series of documentaries on media murders and the quest for justice in the Philippines that the PCIJ is producing on behalf of the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists (FFFJ). Apart from the PCIJ, the FFFJ also counts the Center for Media Freedom and Resoonsibility (CMFR), the Philippine Press Institute (PPI), and the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (KBP) as founding members.

As secretariat of the FFFJ, the CMFR coordinates quick-response missions, medical and educational assistance to the families of the murdered journalists, and coordinates and renders legal assistance in the prosecution of the victims’ cases in court. Atty. Prima Quinsayas, a journalist by training and until recently the dean of student affairs of St. Scholastica’s College-Manila, is the FFFJ legal counsel.

The PCIJ production of documentaries on media killings has received assistance from the Open Society Institute and The Asia Foundation.

PCIJ’s Malou Mangahas discusses how some mediamen fail to appreciate and give more attention to the problem of media killings because they think they are far removed from the problem.

And here, PCIJ’s Mangahas talks about the many pitfalls of reporters and editors in dealing with their sources of news. PCIJ May 2011