Perverse effect

i don’t buy the copycat theory, sheils.

occam’s razor lang yan. like what mr. arroyo said, dapat “well behaved” ang mga journalist, or they’ll get what they deserve.

http://www.malaya.com.ph/may10/edducky.htm

Not even the most corrupt journalist deserves to be killed. This is precisely my point: if they can be saved, by restraining their excesses, then we will have fewer casualties. This may be easier to do — and well within our power — than overhauling the government and reforming the police and the courts so that the culture of violence and impunity will no longer rule and journalists will feel safe. We have to help ourselves, even as we protest the government’s failure to protect us.

if they can be saved, by restraining their excesses, then we will have fewer casualties.

you sound like mom when i was 17 and was the education and propaganda officer of a nationalist youth militant group.

i was whacked once in head by a truncheon-wielding cop, if my memory serves me right, after i defied her advice of not leading a massive boycott of classes in a unversity i was attending.

you’ll just get hurt, i remember her telling me.

i did, but heck it was worth it.

why the ancedote?

the parallelism is obvious. more than a decade later, i am again given the advice that i have the choice of keeping silent if i don’t want to get hurt.

if i do get hurt this time around, will it be worth it? for all the faceless - and sometimes sanctimonious - multitude we call our readers? for the glory of the byline? for the take-home pay that can even barely take you home, for crying out loud?

the nightstick cracking open a bloody wound on my head in 1993 was worth it, sheila.

it still is, even if it should be a .45 aimed at my head the next morning i leave home.

Uh, emo-streak.

Apologies.

On practical safety issues for journalists, there’s the RSF’s Practical Guide for Journalists; the International News Safety Institute’s Survival Guide for Journalists and Safety Code.

Several more practical guides and tips can be directly accessed through NUJP’ssite.

In my years of newspapering, I had only two scares for my physical safety. One involved a police intelligence group conducting a background check surveillance on me and my family in 1996 allegedly as part of security preparations for the APEC summit then for journalists who would cover the event; and two, news three years ago of an CPP-NPA order of battle that tagged me and a colleague for being alleged military agents.

I’m not kidding. The matter - and our names - were cleared and removed from the order of battle only after we found out that the issue was part of the RA-RJ ideological rift and NPA-RHB fratricidal war here that took the lives of some 50 people.

The last incident still gives me the shivers every now and then.

[...] Google’s new China rep office. Southeast Asia: From the Philippines, Inside PCIJ is concerned about killings of journalists. Brandmalaysia on the “Islamic Banking Bandwagon& [...]

I was misunderstood. I was not advocating silence or meek obedience to authority. Far from it. The work that we do is precisely investigative journalism, exposing wrongdoing by people who wield power. I was advocating restraining the excesses of those who use the power of the press not to advance the public’s right to know but to line their pockets and to advance their private political or business interests. I did not mean that we should stop protesting the killings or criticizing the government. Far from it. We have devoted a great deal of our time and energies in the last three years trying to do something about the murders of our colleagues. That was not time or effort wasted.

What I meant was this: we should also do something to ensure that the Jun Palas of the journalism profession do not abuse the freedom that we have fought for and defended so dearly. The bad eggs taint the rest of the profession and alienate us from the public. And alas, they also provide an excuse to the warlords, goons, Angie Reyeses, and Mike Arroyos of the world to justify why journalists are being killed.

For whatever it’s worth, I agree with (what I read as) one of Sheila’s underlying messages here, which is, “let’s (journalists) be responsible for our acts.”

Now of course saying so at a time like this when, “it’s open season on journalists,” is almost in bad taste. But having once been a member of that “endangered tribe” of provincial journalists, I feel a bit entitled to say my piece.

I stopped being a provincial journalist a few years back when my pay and other occupational circumstances forced me to serve my school-aged daughter peanut butter and butter sandwiches for days on end, and to sign a waiver to take her out of a public hospital where she should have been undergoing observation for dengue fever (thankfully, the lab results were wrong). The whole experience led me to reflect on how (un)valued provincial journalists are in Filipino society, even when they are, in many ways, truly the ones “in the line of fire.”

Like everything else in life, we can’t control the things around us, but we can control what we do about them. The spate of killings of journalists (and even activists) is surely cause for alarm. But, I think, the organized groups who endeavor to represent journalists need, at this point, to go beyond the “expose and oppose” frame of mind (as Sheila says) and focus energies and resources (precious little that they have) on capturing concrete gains for journalists – especially provincial correspondents, who are most vulnerable to violence.

And these gains include: providing some form of protection for hard-hitting journalists, and taking care of their welfare in all ways, including the most basic: improving their pay. And hopefully, these groups won’t say organizing unions and getting local media people to go on strike! With most local papers—and even radio stations—in the red, I think there’s really a need today to think out of the box, and craft more creative ways to improve the livelihood of local journalists, short of closing down the papers and stations they work for.

Keeping local journalists out of situations of “starvation pay” is, I believe, is a key way to defeat corrupt practices—and the more common “little” conflicts of interest and gray areas such as moonlighting for public officials and offices—among members of the local press. Given the sorry state of their finances, the local media is more vulnerable to these temptations.

More, in today’s world, one’s pay is often a measure and reflection of how much one’s work is valued. Low pay thus implies less regard for the work of local journalists or for local journalism in general. This may sound like a long shot, but—in ways similar to the dynamics of racism—the combination of the ‘feudal’ outlook in the provinces and the low regard for local journalists makes it easier, more palatable, for local powers-that-be, or just about anyone, to kill off ‘pesky’ journalists.

Couple all these with the inherent power of the press, and you spawn a situation where excesses can—and do—happen, where many “use the power of the press not to advance the public’s right to know but to line their pockets and to advance their private political or business interests.” This contributes to the low regard for local journalists, which contributes to their killing…a vicious cycle–

So there. That’s my little piece dedicated to all those left behind to make difficult choices as local journalists: Wendy Ferrer, who strings for Reuters, and who has never, as far as I know, accepted a bribe; Hannah Lacsamana, another honest one who is often relegated to the ‘soft’ features; Malen Catajan; Chi Balmaceda who survives by getting by on a diet of leaves; Jack Cariño who has all the passion but no money to run a local paper; Desiree Caluza, Vince Cabreza, Jawo and the incorruptible ones at the Inquirer; Roderick Osis who survived for years getting paid per piece. And also to those others who have succumbed in order to feed their growing families and many others…

Covering the Cordilleras, except for Kalinga and Abra, may not get you murdered, but it may get you to die of hunger, haha, or just lead you to succumb for measly little amounts, pang-kape, as they call it, or get burnt out and frustrated enough to get the next bus out of Baguio City.

Hopefully, those groups that seek to represent journalists in the provinces will take heed of this and venture beyond propaganda. =)

we should also do something to ensure that the Jun Palas of the journalism profession do not abuse the freedom that we have fought for and defended so dearly. The bad eggs taint the rest of the profession and alienate us from the public.

precisely. what do we do now with mon tulfo?

makikigulo lang po….

bullet = erring journalist
disproportionate equation. Isn’t it?

No matter how erring or corrupt a journalist death is not the answer though maybe if the corruption is large as economic sabotage maybe just maybe death is the great equalizer.

Sir/ma’am

Just wondering….. Is this a case of exposing corruption? a whistle blower?

I can’t understand this…… can’t our kababayans use technology to expose such things and still be anonymous?
I mean..right now its seems pinoys are into blogging? Can’t we use such fad in this manner?

I asked such things coz i cant understand it….
Right now im helping several individuals from america and specially in china to anonymously and securely pass information for mass consumption.
What i mean cant those people (with aunthentic and/or verifiable info ) have a blog or find a discussion board where they can first post it (before publishing it) for faster public consumption this way the mastermind will find it useless to kill the person….e.g….how many times they shut down our website or kill us its quite too late due to the fact the documents or at least pertaining infos were already out there…sorry for the bad grammar.

Comparing media killings to kidnappings is, I think, misleading. The former is political while the latter is not necessarily political.

Thank you for the painful–and insightful–comments about the plight of provincial journalists. Edgar Damalerio, who was killed in Pagadian City in 2001, earned P6,000 a month as a radio broadcaster. For sure, hardly a livable or decent wage, and yet Edgar took on the mayor, the police, the underworld in Pagadian.

Klein Cantoneros, the radio broadcaster in Dipolog City who was shot the day after Press Freedom, didn’t even leave enough money for hospital and burial expenses.

Journalists’ groups have so far raised funds to help them — but only after they had been killed.

As for Jojo’s query about Mon Tulfo, the answer may be in the most recent post on the Philippine Press Council.

Given these comments, it’s all the more important that we in the Baguio media police their ranks. At the same time, look after the welfare of fellow journalists.

NUJP, the active journalists group in the Cordilleras could look into developing income-generating projects for Baguio-Benguet-Cordillera journalists who earn P75. per story, or are paid per column inch by the big papers.

Unfortunately, some of the active members and officers of NUJP are not known to practice careful journalism. Many equate journalism with propaganda, many see nothing of copying stories or plagiarizing from the internet.

One NUJP Baguio-Benguet officer, for example, is even suspected of accepting bribes. A person who works at Abra Gov. Valera’s office even pinpoint to him of being on the governor’s payroll. But ofcourse there is no written proof of this, no paper trail.

I once had a talk with “him” about this, and the guy actually had a different, more “opportunistic” view of journalism! As most Baguio residents know (it is public knowledge) “the guy” is a product of the Philippine left, and was active in various leftists groups in Baguio before he became a correspondent of the Philippine Star. This, by itself is no problem.

However, in one candid moment, “the guy” admitted to me that since the media is “the fourth estate” and is consequently a part of the “state” that should “fall away in the future,” it was pointless to be an honest journalist. Instead, “the guy” saw his role as that of being a “good soldier” or a good member of the left. This meant that his objective is to use the media for the left’s propaganda.

At the same time, because this was his objective, it was thus “OK”, in his view, to accept bribes, and let it affect his coverage. As long as that allowed him to remain in the “playing field,” he said.

Undoubtedly, some of the more senior members of Baguio media–including “him”–are those who ‘control’ the coverage. But they are also the less idealistic about journalism. Would PCIJ have any thoughts about this?

There are no easy answers to questions of journalistic ethics. But one thing is clear: there is no excuse for accepting money from sources. The PCIJ has published two editions of News for Sale, which investigates media corruption. We found in the course of this study that journalists have offered many excuses for taking bribes: that the money doesn’t affect the way they write, that they are not paid enough, that all the others are on the take, anyway. That the entire system is corrupt and will fall one day is for sure a truly innovative way to justify corruption. It is also a totally cynical justification.

There have been earnest attempts to form a Baguio Press Council. Perhaps this is one step in the right direction.

The anonymity is probably justified for places like China, where press freedom is severely curtailed. I was speaking of the use of anonymous sources for mainstream journalism in countries with relatively freer media systems. I did not say that anonymous sourcing should be done away with completely, I only discussed some ways in which unnamed sources can be used more responsibly.

[...] Southeast Asia: From the Philippines, Inside PCIJ is concerned about killings of journalists. [...]