PHL press re-examines self:
Who will watch the Watchdog?

AT ITS 17TH National Conference that opens today at the New World Hotel in Makati City, the Philippine Press Institute (PPI), the national association of newspapers of the Philippines, tackles a delicate yet necessary theme: a self re-exmination of the responsibilities of the Philippine press.

The conference, titled Watching the Watchdog: Re-examining Ourselves, calls attention to the need for the Philippine press to exercise its watchdog role, not just on the three pillars of government, but on the fourth estate as well.

Indeed, the conference opens with a talk by University of the Philippines College of Mass Communications Dean Roland Tolentino on the issue of competence and professional values in the media. Tolentino will discuss the sensitive question: Is the quality of professional practice by the Philippine media poor?

Other topics that are certain to generate much discussion and possibly even debate during the conference are economic rights and working conditions of journalists, and how traditional newspapers are surviving the digital age.

The PPI is the national association of newspapers whose primary mandate is the defense of press freedom and the promotion of ethical standards in the journalism community. The Institute was founded in 1964, but was only revived in 1986 with the ouster of former President Ferdinand Marcos.

The Institute holds a National Press Forum and general membership meeting every year in order to gather senior members of the journalism community for a dialogue on the pressing needs and concerns of the industry. The PPI also works closely with media organizations such as the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism on a wide spectrum of issues such as media concerns, governance, press freedom, and freedom of information.

Aside from Dean Tolentino, the other resource persons who had been invited to address the PPI forum are: Rowena Paraan, national president of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP); Malou Mangahas, executive director of the Philippine Center on Investigative Journalism (PCIJ); and Marites Vitug of social news network Rappler; journalist-blogger Raissa Robles; and Ramon Tuazon of the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication (AIJC).

What follows is a live blog of the two-day 17th PPI National Press Forum at the New World Hotel in Makati City.

DAY 1

June 13, 2013

1:30

The PPI national conference began with the cutting of the ribbon for the 17th Annual Press Forum at the entrance of the grand ballroom of the New World Hotel in Makati.

Gracing the occasion were PPI President and Chairman Amado Macasaet, PPI vice chairman Vergel Santos, and Adel Tamano, director for public affairs of Coca Cola Philippines, which assisted in the conference.

This was followed by the viewing by the PPI members and guests of exhibits from newspapers all over the country of their stories and editions based on the theme Climate Change and Biodiversity.

PPI President and chairman Amado ‘Jake’ Macasaet opened the annual conference with a reminder to the assembled journalists that journalists are not a special class of people who must be given special privileges – or preferences.

Macasaet said it was necessary for media to conduct a self examination of he industry because of the need to address the issue of corruption in the media.

“We will try to address this not by stabbing ourselves in the back, but right here, where we can get hurt. There should not be personal feelings about how we have failed in doing our jobs,” Macasaet said.

“We cannot lay claim to honesty and integrity if you have a thief in your own home,” Macasaet said.

As well, Macasaet said it was about time that mediamen realize that they should not hold themselves above the rest of society, with special privileges that are not granted to ordinary Filipinos.

“In my thinking, a newspaperman should not look at selves as one who is different from the man next door,” Macasaet said. For example, Macasaet pointed out how mediamen raise hell whenever one of their own is killed. However, “do we care about a balut vendor, for example, whose daily earnings are fleeced by a cop?”

“We really don’t,” he said.

“We should veer away from the idea that we are a special class of people,” Macasaet said.

At the same time Macasaet decried how, despite repeated conferences and meetings, the PPI has not been able to keep its member-publishers in line in terms of ethics and professionalism.

“We cannot get the publishers to be bound,” Macasaet said. “For example, the press councils; we have investigations of complaints, and guilt is found, and recommendations are sent to the publishers – and then nothing happens!”

In his opening remarks, PPI vice chairman Vergel Santos traced the roots of some of the causes of today’s issues in journalism and media, beginning with the declaration of Martial Law which derailed the development of the media industry, and globalization and the rush of new technologies, which he said turned everything into a matter of markets and economies.

Santos also bewailed how journalism in the traditional sense has been “hijacked” by new communications technology that has overtaken many practitioners.

“Now, the field belongs more to non journalists, the professionals in whose suitably trained hands it was supposed to rest,” Santos said.

“this technology culprit now allows anyone to string words together, and to foist on the rest of the world misinformation and confusion instead of enlightenment,” Santos said.

For his part UP College of Mass Communications Dean Roland Tolentino, in his talk on the quality of the professional skills of mediamen today, pointed to the new modality in journalism wherein journalism has to contend with popular appeal. This is more apparent in broadcast, where, for example, Tolentino says national news is “showbizified,” and showbiz is “nationalized.”

In the first, Tolentino says, the trivial aspects of national personalities are highlighted; for example, stories on the lovelife of the President, or red carpet reports on important state events, or stories on the hobbies of political personalities. The second, on the other hand, pushes trivial matters such as showbiz on the national scene, giving them equal prominence as more urgent issues.

“This underscores the system of equivalences, the dumbing down of news and the condescending take on audiences,” Tolentino said. “Newspapers need to tell the truth, but they also need to sell the truth.”

‘The negotiation is based on the truth on one hand, and the selling of the truth on the other hand,” Tolentino said.

Tolentino added that while there appears to be more than enough students graduating from journalism schools today, a sizeable number of media workers do not come from these programs. As such, “the competencies are to be learned and mastered on the job. This makes for an uneven landscape of competencies.”

“The result is a need for more training of core values, and a perennial catch-up game to meet professional standards,” Tolentino said.

PPI vice chairman Vergel Santos

UP MassComm Dean Roland Tolentino

Several issues came up during the open forum for the first panel, including the lack of a venue for working journalists to upgrade their skills while at the same time working. The audience asked if universities are already offering short certification courses on, for example, how to understand a financial statement.

Dean Tolentino said that these courses are being studied now by many universities. Santos for his part cited the importance of continuing studies and training, if only to ensure that journalists who report the news must first know how to understand the news they report. For example, Santos said that the ability of a journalist to read a financial statement would ensure that he knows how the data in a financial statement could be fudged by government officials who want to look good.

Another member of the audience cited the need for journalists and their media agencies to reveal their “environment,” or “where they are coming from,” so that their audience or readers are better able to understand them.

Santos however took it a step further by stressing the need for newspapers and media organizations to reveal their funders and business interests to the public so as to erase any doubts. Santos said this is akin to requiring government officials to submit and disclose their statements of assets, liabilities, and net worth or SALNs.

June 13, 2013
2:55 p.m.

For the second panel, Asian Institute of Journalism president Ramon Tuazon spoke of media’s re-examination of the role of news in a democracy. Tuazon centered on two issues here: marketability as a news value, and corruption in media.

Tuazon said that marketability has established itself in the news media as one of the primary elements of a story. Marketability is called several names, or defined in several ways, the most popular being the ratings system.

As for corruption in media, Tuazon said a series of roundtable discussions among media men in the provinces reveal that corruption is very prevalent in media, permeating all levels from the lowest to the highest.

Tuazon said the it has gotten to the point that it already has its own vocabulary: bukol, didal, ATM journalism, etc. Corruption has also evolved into other forms, giving the appearance of regularity.

For example, some media agencies make their journalists do double roles as account executives. Other media agencies foist the argument that there is no corruption if there is no under the table deal, and that a contract can legitimize the changing of hands of money.

Other arguments and statements that came up during the roundtable discussions:

• There is no corruption pag hindi mo hiningi ang ibinigay sa iyo
• Pag walang corruptuon, maraming journalists na maghihirap

“That everyone does it is now an excuse to justify corruption,” Tuazon said.

Rowena Paraan, head of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), for her part pointed to violations of the economic rights of journalists as another kind of violence against media.

For example, Paraan said many journalists especially in the countryside “have no idea of the minimum wage, or that minimum wage should apply to them.”

Paraan also decried the practice of many media agencies in the provinces of requiring reporters to sell ad space or airtime to the people they cover, in exchange for a ten or 20 percent commission.

In fact, Paraan said, she has heard that some media agencies actually find it more convenient and profitable to have their more prominent reporters personally sell ad space or airtime to their sources. “Let’s face it, this is a conflict of interest situation,” Paraan said.

Paraan also pointed to yet another practice by media agencies of refusing to recognize an employer-employee relationship with their reporters in order to avoid giving them labor benefits. This contractualization of journalists makes them more vulnerable to safety and ethical issues, Paraan said.

In fact, Paraan said some media agencies, including the major networks, have already shown expertise in finding loopholes in labor laws. Some networks, for example, invented all sorts of levels in order to ensure that there are few employees who can become members of unions.

Paraan said it was unfortunate that many media agencies have taken this route, so that “the future of the profession that is the backbone of democracy is now in danger.”

Raissa Robles, Manila correspondent of the South China Morning Post and a popular blogger, in turn spoke on how new technology was reshaping the way journalists bring the news to the public.

Robles, who says she was once also digitally challenged, now challenged editors and publishers to adapt to a rapidly changing world instead of staying as part of the “digitally homeless.”

“The once a day cycle is gone, and the newspapers don’t seem to care,” she said. “But the people want it now, not tomorrow.”

Robles said the what was a one-way street before is now an interactive world. “Before, the press told readers what stand to take through their editorials, and controlled feedback through the letters to the editors,” she said. Now, however, Robles said, newspapers need to move from “entitlement to people empowerment.”

Robles added that journalists should not fear becoming obsolete. Mainstream journalists would survive, Robles said, provided they maintain and develop four skills:

• The ability to recognize something as newsy;
• The ability to get facts completely and accurately;
• The ability to get the other side or the contrary view;
• and the ability to sense a pattern of events and make sense of it

Eileen Mangubat, editor of the Cebu Daily News, remarked that it would also be good for the panelists to speak about the positive efforts by many journalists to fight corruption in the media. Mangubat said that while publishers and editors recognize the problem of corruption, there is value in also applauding the efforts of journalists to clean their ranks.

The discussion on corruption in media proved quite controversial, as some publishers took the floor to explain why some media agencies adopt practices that media organizations describe as unethical.

One publisher said it was difficult for his newspaper to take the cudgels for his local officials if it tries to be critical. The local officials in his province, for example, have proven to be quite supportive of his newspaper to begin with.

This remark drew many comments from the panel and the floor, with several panelists saying they were disturbed by the remark of the publisher. Tuazon pointed out that it is not the job of a journalist “to take the cudgels for his local officials” to begin with.

Another publisher was more cautious, saying it was not fair to talk about corruption by journalists, when the issue is really “corruption of the publisher.”

“There is a difference between publishers and mediamen,” he said. “We survive by the patronage of the politicians and the businessmen, they are the source of our income. This supports my theory that in the rural areas, you should not call it corruption of the media or of the journalists, it could be corruption of the publisher.”

Tuazon for his part proposed a system of accreditation and classification of media personnel by a reputable group or network of groups, so long as government is in no way involved in the system. This, Tuazon said, would help address the issue of professionalizing the media industry.

Eileen Mangubat of the Cebu Daily News pointed out the need for everyone to disclose just how much they are paying their journalists. Mangubat said if need be, an independent organization should come out with a study or a white paper, since “it will never come out of the owners.”
“It’s important to see the baeline, so that we see what is fair and exploitative,” Mangubat said.

Paraan said owners and publishers should also not use their economic woes to justify their refusal to pay their employees decent wages, or to give their employees benefits, or even to simply recognize or acknowledge their journalists as actual bona fide employees.