Media watchdog warns networks to regulate selves

A leading media watchdog group warned of government intervention if broadcast media failed to regulate themselves.

The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) issued the statement late Saturday in the wake of growing criticism that live television coverage helped agitate hostage-taker Rolando Mendoza, a dismissed police officer, to the point of shooting his hostages inside a tourist bus last August 23.

The media watchdog was referring to proposed legislation at the House of Representatives calling for news blackouts in hostage crises. It said that media must prove it can police its own ranks before opposing any government regulation.

"The media must oppose any attempt at legislated journalism ethics, which is a patent contradiction in terms, journalism ethics being a matter of voluntary compliance. But the media must also address their own limitations and failings if they are to deserve and to hold the moral high ground when defending their hard-won freedom from government restraint," CMFR said.

"Resistance to government regulation can only be meaningful if the media honor the self-regulatory regime that the constitutional protection to press freedom so clearly demands," the media monitoring group said.

Mendoza’s anger was reportedly stoked by a live broadcast of his brother, SPO2 Gregorio Mendoza, being arrested by Manila police at a community precinct near the Quirino Grandstand, where the carnage took place.

The bus driver, Alberto Lubang, who escaped through a window after the shooting started, told radio broadcasters during the crisis that Mendoza was watching GMA News' coverage on a TV set in the bus.

The media "should have enough sense to know when to delay the airing of broadcasts as well as when to 'black out,'" the CMFR said, stressing that media networks should not wait for security forces to request for news blackouts or to delay the airing of news.

"Given the unpredictability of hostage-taker or terrorist reactions to TV or radio broadcasts, the point is to assume that he or she is monitoring the media and could therefore react to media reportage or commentary in unpredictable ways," the media watchdog said.

It reminded media that in volatile situations such as the Aug. 23 incident, the primordial duty of news organizations was to minimize harm rather than air news reports.

Both GMA News and ABS-CBN have issued statements that they are reviewing their practices.

"We urge our colleagues to resist blaming the police for not having imposed restrictions on them," said the CMFR. "The self-regulatory regime in which the media function demands that they do not wait to be told what to do given the basic responsibility to minimize harm."

"When the situation began to compromise the hostages, the media should have discontinued live coverage, and to delay broadcasting inflammatory statements and footage," it added. [Read CMFR's full statement here.]

House bill may limit press freedom

Article III, Section 4 of the 1987 Constitution provides that, "No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances."

The CMFR warned that Rep. Luis Quisumbing's House Bill No. 2737, if passed into law, may result in limiting press freedom.

"No matter how seemingly well meaning, in the Philippine experience, such bills end up covering more than they originally intended. With public support... such bills will take on lives of their own, and are likely to end up imposing greater restrictions on press freedom itself," said the organization.

Instead of waiting for legislation to impose protocols on sensitive coverage, the CMFR reminded media of international, well-established protocols that discourages "live broadcasts of interviews, police operations and other reports."

[See: Poynter's Guidelines for Covering Hostage-taking Crises, Prison Uprisings, Terrorist Actions by Bob Steele]

"Best practice dictates that these protocols be observed. That they were not has led to legislators’ introducing such bills as those mandating delayed broadcasts," said the CMFR.

Last interview

On Sunday, the Philippine Daily Inquirer published the transcript of Mendoza's interview with Radyo Mo Nationwide (RMN). The transcript shed light on the hostage crisis' final hour — from Mendoza's repeated demand to get his job back to the time he fired the first bullets from his M-16 assault rifle.

The events worsened when Mendoza saw on the bus' television that his brother was being arrested by Manila policemen.

Mendoza said, "Ayan o, nakikita ko rito, nakaharap diyan sa TV. Ginagawa nilang baboy ’yang kapatid kong pulis. Walang kasalanan ’yan. Hindi niya alam ang pangyayari na ’to (There, I can see on TV what's going on. They're treating my policeman-brother like a pig. He’s innocent. He does not know about this incident)."

The hostage-taker then warned that if the police would not let go of his brother he would start shooting all the hostages, one by one.

Statement by the University of the Philippines' College of Mass Communications

Last Friday, a statement by faculty and students of the University of the Philippines' College of Mass Communications (UP-CMC) criticized the media for broadcasting "information that proved to be relevant not to the public but to the hostage-taker."

The university produced many of the journalists and media decision-makers involved in the coverage of the hostage crisis.

"It is appalling that the live coverage was done not to help the public make sense of the situation but only to milk it for all it was worth," the UP-CMC said in its statement.

GMA and ABS-CBN's statements

GMA News issued a statement saying that it is "taking a second look at our existing policies and processes to determine how these can be improved." [Read: GMA News' statement]

ABS-CBN also said it has finished its initial assessment of last Monday's coverage and is in the process of reviewing its policies. [Read: ABS-CBN News' statement]

Both networks say they are willing to dialogue and discuss the matter with authorities. —VS/HS, GMANews.TV

source:mb