Category: media

media & national interest

in the senate inquiry into media’s role in the aug. 23 hostage-taking, senate president juan ponce enrile was critical of maria ressa’s wall street journal article, Noynoy Flunks His First Test.

What prompted you to write such a critique … put on the line the quality of leadership of the newly elected president of the country? (and) At bottom issue is the collision of two interests: there’s the obligation to your audience and faithfulness to your calling, at the same time we are Filipinos with a country to serve.  What if national interests are damaged by the performance of your duties?  Where do you draw the line between serving your country’s national interest and serving your ethical and professional obligations as journalists? … need a certain amount of caution in the manner of disseminating information …  in carefully calibrated language… (or something to this effect)

ressa’s response:

Freedom of speech is universal.  There is no conflict of interest for journalists in or out of the Philippines.  We do not write with intent of bringing anything down…  hoping for better action from government…. (and) I merely laid out the facts … the way events played out … there really was failure of the chain of command… intention was to constructively criticize … facts unassailable… rescue attempt botched… levels of incompetence… political factionalism… negative light? …  the farthest thing on my mind… (and) We have to make a distinction between the job of a public relations person vs the job of a journalist… (or something to this effect)

but but but even if it were true that ressa merely laid out facts, still she was selective about the facts she laid out — she said nothing on how media flunked, too, bakit nagmamalinis.   and in fact, she went beyond laying out facts when she issued that judgment, the opinion, that the president flunked his first test, AND used it as TITLE, setting the unmistakably negative tone of the article. kasi pala, the solicited article was not for the news but for the opinion page.   mary kissel, editorial board member of the wall street journal, said in a phone interview tuesday:

… what Ressa wrote “wasn’t a news story,” but was an article for the paper’s opinion pages where “you’re expected to have an opinion.”

and even if ressa were right, that noynoy flunked his first test, why why why rub it in for all the world to read and to recall, and, of all places, in the world’s most prestigious business paper where the trustworthiness of a country is assessed, ika nga ni enrile, starting with the quality of the leadership.   why why why further shake global confidence in our country when that confidence is so badly shaken na.   like c_at commented in ressa, media, flunk test:

Wallstreet Journal, the newspaper read by investment and hedge fund managers, pension administrators, venture capitalists and mutual funds managers.

And these are the people Aquino would like to invite for investments in the Philippines during his US visit one week from now. Very timely indeed.

i’m not saying ressa shouldn’t have written an article for the wall street journal when she did.   i’m just saying she was selective and one-sided; she could have critiqued everyone involved, including the media that she’s part of.   also, she could have gone for a less judgmental and sensational title and so helped mitigate rather than exacerbate the damage.   puwede naman to give the president the benefit of the doubt muna, kahit pa grudgingly.   nothing “PR” about that.

i liked abc 5’s luchi cruz valdez‘ response to: where do you draw the line (between national interests and media interests) :

We draw the line where human lives are at stake, number 1. Number 2 we draw the line where the life of a legitimate government is at stake.

neat sideswipe, that ;))   as for the question i raised earlier, as to whether ressa’s judgment is a reflection of that of her bosses the lopezes, say ni  armida siguion-reyna in her tribune column “Honeymoon is over?”

The chismis is Ressa’s boss Gabby Lopez isn’t happy about it, but this stays scuttlebutt until confirmed.

cocktales’ vic agustin confirms:

ABS-CBN chairman Eugenio “Gabby” Lopez III is already in the United States, a de-facto advance party of the business delegation that was invited to accompany P.Noy in his first foreign trip.

His dilemma: Damage control ensuing from the Wall Street Journal opinion piece written by Maria Ressa, his own network’s news and current affairs chief.

oh well.   maybe we shouldn’t be counting on foreigners too much anyway?   instead, tap rich filipinos with secret bank accounts abroad to invest in their own country for a change?   heh.   fat chance.

at least there’s still leila de lima’s report, and the prospect of heads rolling, to look forward to.   that should help, kahit paano.

ressa, media, flunk test

wazzup, maria ressa?  nagulat, hindi, nagulumihanan, naman ako sa iyong Noynoy Flunks His First Test, published monday sept 6 sa the wall street journal online, then a couple or so days later sa abs-cbn website.   parang at this point in time, ika nga, when we are all, including the bereaved and traumatized chinese, waiting patiently for the results of the DOJ investigation, parang wrong lang yung timing.   why couldn’t it wait until you had something more to say, even if, yeah, some of it may have been new to the international community (and then again maybe not).

nakakapagpaisip tuloy kung bakit mo binanatan si noynoy nang gayon just then, in such a conclusive manner, when really palpak din naman, and even more conclusively, ang media.   sabi nga ni doy santos aka the cusp sa propinoy.net:

“He who is without sin should cast the first stone.” What is conveniently left out here is how the media contributed to the bungled operation. Are they now trying to deflect attention on to the administration because of their own mistakes. A little introspection and reticence would do them some good. –  9 September 2010 at 9:23 am

Maria Ressa’s assessment of PNoy is unwarranted given her own involvement as news director of a station. She has gone from merely reporting to editorializing. You don’t trip someone and then turn around and tell that person that he’s not well-coordinated. Or that it was his fault for not restraining you in the first place. It is a little disingenuous. – 9 September 2010 at 6:25 pm

we all know that ressa’s bosses the lopezes campaigned big time for noynoy, as well as her anchor ricky carandang, now one of the three-headed six-legged communications group.   so i wonder, what’s the subtext of the article?   that the lopezes, the network, are distancing themselves from the president and don’t care if he goes down?   there’s always binay?   ano kayang say ni kris diyan?   or is this just ressa, declaring her editorial independence via a lame last-ditch attempt to “deflect attention” from media?   she wrote it days before tuesday sept 7 when we first heard the damning RMN tapes at the DOJ hearing, so maybe she knew about those tapes, so maybe she was on defensive mode, blame the president na lang, una-unahan na lang?

it’s a pity that ressa couldn’t wouldn’t take the higher ground when she was is in the perfect position to do so.   at least dzmm wasn’t caught interviewing the hostage-taker at any time, even if anthony taberna and gerry baja interviewed, and delayed, isko moreno on his way back from the ombudsman.   at least no abscbn anchor/reporter was seen making gapang, stooping down to the level of, the struggling brother a la gma’s susan enriquez.

seeing now how badly media affected the proceedings and the outcome, i can’t believe that ressa refuses to promise a blackout next time unless all the other networks promise the same.   here’s manuel buencamino (in a comment to an earlier post) on ressa and media:

Maria Ressa’s tweet shows the kind of mentality prevalent in media: “If only one network does it, you would just switch to another. Needed gov’t to ask for blackout from all. We would’ve cooperated.”

Sinisi pa ang gobyerno. Has she ever heard of the term “self-restraint”?

And this is what she said during a forum at the College of Mass Communication of the University of the Philippines last August 28, Friday : “We would have been criticized by the viewers or what viewers would have done is switch stations.”

Ayun mas mahalaga ang ratings kaysa sa buhay ng tao.

Iisa ang takbo ng utak ni Maria Ressa, Erwin Tulfo, at RMN. Ratings is the end all and be all of modern journalists so news is whatever is sensational. Today’s editors use Nielsen ratings rather than substance to evaluate what can be aired or published.

talaga naman, ano?   it certainly doesn’t speak well of the media that they can’t come together like mature adults and speak as one on self-regulation without government sitting in.   i’m surprised that for someone so high-profile, ressa doesn’t have the chutzpah to dare lead the way, promise to not cover or air anything live in a hostage situation without the go-signal of authorities.    i would expect that other networks would at the very least be shamed into following suit.   if not, well, we know who to charge for criminal broadcasting next time around (god forbid).

no-holds-barred?

flunk na flunk din ang media in that panel discussion with the president.   can’t find a complete transcript yet, only a partial one from ellen tordesillas but i’ve watched/listened to the entire thing at least twice and i’m sure not tiangco not failon not bediones asked about the failed attempts to resolve the situation without bloodshed, i.e., by giving the hostage-taker what he was asking for.  the president did volunteer this early on:

Buong araw, mataas ang kumpiyansa na mare-resolba iyong isyung ito na walang pagdadanak ng dugo dahil kakaiba sa normal na—iyong hostage taking situation. Nagkaroon ng pagre-release ng mga hostages bago pa nag-umpisa iyong negotiation.

i would have asked if such optimism — that mendoza would just continue to release hostages even if his demands were not taken seriously — was shared by psychologists familiar with hostage-taker personalities.   were any psychologists consulted?   any psychologist worth his salt would have cautioned against taking anything for granted, especially where so many lives were still on the line.

At some point in the day, I talked to Sec. Soliman, vice chair of the NDCC, kasi I noticed there was only one ambulance. She said that there were several ambulances ready. I asked if doctors familiar with treating gunshot and blast wounds were also available; blood supplies, etc. She told me that it would be Sec. Ona who would be in a better position. She called him up, and they called me back afterwards na these had already been taken care of.

i would have asked why he was already thinking ambulances and doctors, gunshot and blast wounds, even before thinking how to resolve the situation without bloodshed.   i would have asked what he was doing all afternoon after the swearing in of gina lopez and others.   did he ever ask how the negotiations were going?   was he happy enough to hear that isko had a letter from the ombudsman without him having to intervene?    did he regret at all not intervening when the ombudsman’s letter did not do the job?

the promise of a complete transcript on the palace’s website is still that, a promise.   but i’ve listened to that harapan twice and much later into the hour-and-a-half the president vaguely referred to thinking of ordering the ombudsman… i suppose to come up with a document, no matter if bogus… and pinag-isipan daw kung paano bolahin si mendoza … pero paano kung hindi maniwala … and anong epekto later on … it would complicate negotiations in future hostage-taking situations, the credibility of negotiators would be put at risk….

i would have asked: but why should future hostage-takings be more important than saving lives in THIS hostage-taking???   besides, negotiations did not have to be made public.   the public would not have protested being kept out of the loop as long as the hostages were rescued unharmed.   the irony is, all that concern and alalay for future hostage-taking situations brought about exactly what they were afraid of, and more: the loss of credibility all around, not to speak of the loss of precious lives.

plagiarism, manny pangilinan, karen davila

no wonder manny pangilinan a.k.a. MVP needs a ghostwriter for his speeches.  if his apology to fr. ben nebres is any indication — i’m supposing he wrote it himself — his english isn’t all that great pala:

I have been told last night that portions of my graduation remarks – in particular my address to the Schools of Humanities and Social Sciences – had been borrowed from certain other graduation speeches.

“i have been told last night”…??? eeeww.  this from an ateneo cum laude alumnus?

anyway, like i’ve said in twitter and facebook, at least pangilinan had the grace to be embarrassed and to apologize and take responsibility for the plagiarism instead of excusing himself and blaming only his writers a la ANC’s karen davila.  better yet he has the delicadeza (so rare!) to “wish to retire” from his official duties at the ateneo.

I am truly regretful for it. I already have too many battles to fight, and some of them I wish not to have to fight. In this instance, I do not want to, and would seek only the honourable and principled way out. The matter at hand may rest after this public apology, but it gives me a lot of personal discomfort to continue to be closely involved with Ateneo affairs after this incident. I am afraid the damage has been done – wala talaga akong mukhang ihaharap pagkatapos.

With much regret, Fr Ben, I would wish to retire from my official duties at the Ateneo.

in his place though i not only “would wish to retire,” i would simply resign and not give the ateneo any option but to accept it.  unless of course he is willing to be persuaded to stay, which would be not only masochistic of him, now that his rockstar status in campus has been degraded by a clear lack of “smarts” at least when it comes to PR ghostwriters, it would also send the message to / set the pattern for students and teachers alike that one only has to immediately apologize when found out, and ayos na ang buto-buto.

as for karen davila, she (along with maria ressa) must be thanking her lucky stars na hindi siya kasing bigtime ni manny pangilinan at hindi ako celebrity like oprah & jk rowling.  but if they think na nakalimutan na ang aking plagiarism charge re the laban ni cory tv docu that had davila mouthing spiels re EDSA that were clearly lifted from my book without attribution, they have another think coming.

even before MVP messed up, i would get intermittent queries from family and friends, online and off, asking kung ano nang nangyari, lalo na when davila was given her own show on ANC.   my answer always was, i’ll blog about it one of these days.   and mula nang pumutok itong kay MVP, ang daming nagtatanong uli kung kailan ba ako magkukuwento, what am i waiting for.  so, okay, now na.

timeline

august 2.  laban ni cory started airing on ABS-CBN 2, replayed again and again over the next ten days or so.

august 8.  emailed butch h., executive director of the people power foundation that published my book, about the plagiarism, and that i intended to blog it.  he said, go ahead:  “you are the author, after all is said and done.”

august 11.  plagiarism and, uh, karen davila, is that you?

august 12.  heard davila on dzmm teleradyo say that she knew nothing about it, she didn’t write her spiels for that docu.

august 13.  received this email from maria ressa:

From: <Maria_Ressa@abs-cbn.com>
Date: Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 10:51 AM
Subject: Plagiarism Charge

Dear Ms. Stuart-Santiago,

Common friends told me about your blog post. I read both your post and the spirited debate in the responses.

I want to assure you that, as head of ABS-CBN News & Current Affairs, I take your charges seriously.

We do not condone plagiarism in any way.

I’ve started an investigation and will personally let you know the results.

Best,

Maria

august 14.  sat down with a lawyer whom i’d consulted on a property matter some years ago, whoagreed that i had a case, even if the copyright belonged to the publisher that paid me a lump sum for that print edition.  but he advised that we give ressa time (a couple of weeks) to investigate and get back to me, hopefully with at least an apology.  (yes, a quick apology would have sufficed.)

august 25.  having received no more word from ressa, lawyer sent ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. a registered complaint and demand letter.  failure to comply would force us to bring the matter to court and take appropriate action, etc.  (received my copy in the mail august 28)

september 7.  katrina attended poet larry ypil’s book launch where she was informed by a high-profile writer that he and another high-profile writer had received calls from ABS-CBNpersonalities saying that davila was looking to hook up with me in private, but neither presumed to know me well enough to help out; however the high-profile writer’s advice via my daughter was, better to “negotiate” with davila directly rather than go the lawyer-complaint route, or something to that effect.  but i was not interested in under-the-table deals.  i was more interested in seeing where “due process” would take me (or not).  besides if davila really wanted to find me, she could have tried harder.

september 11.   got an email from butch h., informing me that maria ressa was asking for a copy of my book.

also around this time i heard from a familyfriend who knows people high up in ABS-CBN that a serious investigation was going on and that the writer who wrote davila’s spiels was going to get fired if s/he hadn’t been yet, or something to that effect.  texted all this hearsay info to lawyer.

october 7.  texted lawyer: “anong balita?”   he texted back: “no communic8n, feelers from abs cbn?”  i said no, not on my end.  he texted back: “ok, will draft complaint na.”  that was the last i heard from him.

fast forward to feb 15, 2010.  a group of u.p. journalism students requested an interview re my plagiarism charge for a paper they were writing for their journalism ethics class.  of course i said yes, sabay text and email sa lawyer hoping for an update.  no response.

i went ahead with the interview anyway, which forced me to deal with and make sense of the fact that my lawyer seems to have bailed out on me — i had / have seen him on ANC (or maybe it was on Channel 2, or both) being interviewed as a 2010 bet, which should tell me what, that maybe he didn’t go to court with my complaint, as he had promised?  or maybe he did but “due process” is just supersloww?  or maybe he has been prevailed upon to drop the case?  either or, maybe he’s just too busy campaigning to text or email, let me know what’s going on?  maybe he doesn’t need my vote, lol.

bottom line?

i hoped / continue to hope, of course, that my publishers would support my plagiarism charge but maybe they don’t care to pala, in aid perhaps of information dissemination?  in that event, would it mean that anyone can now lift passages from my work?  a pattern, a precedent, has been set?  (please tell me it isn’t so.)

for ABS-CBN the bottom line may be:  she doesn’t own the copyright, she has no case.  hmm.  what did ressa say again?  “We do not condone plagiarism in any way.”   yeah, right.  after all, it is as much a sacred rule of journalism as respecting the confidentiality of one’s sources.

katrina’s take:

This is my issue with the way there has just been silence about this plagiarism case (and now Davila has a new show pa on ANC, que horror!).  The manner in which Mama’s original words were used, while possibly for information dissemination, etc., BECAUSE it was done by ABS-CBN, was really also about PROFIT.  Linawin natin: in the academe, sige, a teacher might read 3 books and do a lecture for a class, even using the authors’ words without attribution, okay lang, walang kumita doon.   But on nationwide commercial and cable television?  Paulit-ulit pa nila ni-replay!  Where is the justice in not even mentioning the author?  Where is the justice in just meeting a plagiarism accusation with silence?

ABS-CBN should be ashamed and embarassed.  Nakakahiya sila.

sabi rin ni alex magno sa philippine star on MVP’s speech::

In the academe and among the literati, plagiarism is a cardinal offense. For professional writers, an instance of plagiarism is a career-ender.

Never mind libel cases. Among opinion writers, that is an occupational hazard — and sometimes a measure of valor. But plagiarism, that kills. It washes away the respect of peers and readers. One opinion writer, many years ago, drifted into purgatory after a hawk-eyed reader spotted plagiarized text in his column.

ah, but davila & ressa, ABS-CBN & ANC, are something else, playing by the rules only when it suits them, in effect lowering the bar for broadcast journalism hereabouts,  what a shame.

they should take the cue from MVP who cares about honor and principle, and doing the right thing, kahit gaano kasakit — mabuhay siya!  and good luck na rin sa kanyang ABC channel 5!

hearsay not good enough

Court should allow live coverage of Ampatuan trial
Neal Cruz

Why is live coverage by the media of the Ampatuan trial being prohibited? Isn’t that a denial of the public’s right to information? I understand that the judge wants to avoid the circus atmosphere that sometimes descends on an event when competing television networks jockey for vantage points. But that can easily be avoided by assigning one or two pool cameras and limiting them to a small part of the courtroom and then sharing the footage with the other networks. The same goes for print reporters. For the public, closed-circuit cameras can broadcast the trial to TV sets outside.

The alternative is to deny the people the right to view a very important trial. What is being tried here is not a sex crime or a family quarrel where intimate details are dredged up by the lawyers. It is a heinous crime. The accused will not be denied their right to a fair trial. The people have the right to be informed how justice is done, so that they will learn, once more, that crime does not pay.

If the trial is closed to live coverage, people will start suspecting that some hanky-panky is going on, especially because the Ampatuan family is a close ally of the President. So whatever the decision will be, people will suspect that some horsetrading went on.

i so agree.   besides, the accounts of the media personnel privileged to witness the proceedings are just not good enough.   siyempre kulang-kulang sa details.   and you wonder how accurate the quickie summaries are.   nothing beats watching and hearing the proceedings, questions and testimonies, first-hand, in real time, via audio-video recordings.   anything else is hearsay.

Open Ampatuan trial to live coverage,
media and lawyers urge
John Alliage Tinio Morales

MANILA, Philippines – Media and lawyers’ groups on Monday appealed to Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes to allow live coverage of the trial of the Ampatuan massacre case.

… At the launching of the People’s Task Force on Maguindanao, Rowena Paraan of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) said they are writing a formal letter to Reyes Tuesday, a day before the second hearing into the petition for bail filed by Ampatuan.

She said Supreme Court spokesman Jose Midas Marquez had advised the NUJP to write a letter to Solis instead of filing a formal motion.

…Roan Libarios, governor of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, said: “We are in support of the request of the NUJP and other media organizations to be allowed access to the court proceedings, subject to some safety nets.”

…At the press conference sponsored by the task force, a reporter from ABS-CBN said the news network had already sent a formal letter to Solis asking for her permission to grant the taking of video footage during the hearing for the petition for bail. But the reporter said Solis denied the request in just a matter of “five minutes.”

Should the judge deny the request made by the NUJP, Paraan said that the group would definitely file a formal motion for the scheduled third hearing on January 20.

Thomas Prado, national secretary of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, advised the NUJP that its formal letter should be “attached to a formal motion.”

Should Judge Solis again deny the motion for live coverage, Prado said, “I think there is a way to bring it up to the Supreme Court.”

Even the Supreme Court has long settled in its jurisprudence that fears over trial by publicity would not influence the decision of the court of justice, private prosecutor Harry Roque said.

He cited a Supreme Court ruling on the request of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines for the live radio-TV coverage of the plunder trial against deposed president Joseph Estrada in 2001.

In that decision, the Supreme Court laid three reasons for the televised recording of public events: First, the hearings are of historic significance; second, cases involve matters of vital concern to the people who have a fundamental right to know how their government is conducted; and third, the audio-visual presentation is essential for the education and civic training of the people.

The high tribunalsaid that the live recording of public events is, above all, for “documentary purposes.”

The high court said the recording could be useful in preserving the essence of the proceeding in a way print cannot quite do. It added that the recording could be used by appellate courts in the event of a review.

In the ruling, the magistrates clearly laid out conditions for live media coverage, including the recording of the trial in its entirety, installation of cameras in inconspicuous places, reason of documentary purposes, and the court supervision of the recording.

JV Bautista, former party-list representative and IBP member, said that in theory, trials must always be made public, as long as the media “do not turn the hearing into a circus.”

Quoting US court decisions and academic studies, Roquesaid that the live coverage of public events would compel “everyone included in the hearing to be at their best.”

Prado added that the public could scrutinize the competence of the public prosecutors in the performance of their duties, especially so that “we have rusty public prosecutors.” On the part of the defense, the public can see judge whether the accused is lying or not.