ABS-CBN STATEMENT ON AUG. 23 HOSTAGE TRAGEDY

Media's job is to tell the story, but no story is worth even one life.

We will always cooperate with authorities in trying to resolve complex situations like the Aug 23 hostage crisis.

If the government had called for a news blackout, ABS-CBN would have supported it.

We are done with an initial assessment of our coverage and continue to review our policies.

We exercised self-restraint on Monday:
1. We refused to air the hostage taker's threats live about a 3 pm deadline to avoid fuelling public fear.
2. We refused to air the hostage taker's interview until after negotiations were finished.
3. We refused to be part of hostage negotiations.
4. All throughout the day and until the first shots were aired, we kept our cameras 400 meters away from the bus, giving us shaky video that viewers complained about. Our teams never crossed the police line.
5. Although we had access to members of the police reaction team, we held back interviews which could compromise their plans and/or location.
6. After the police tried to arrest the hostage taker's brother, our team physically stepped back to comply with police request.
7. After the assault began, we tried to limit our shots to avoid showing police movements. We stayed with extreme close-ups or wide shots.
8. We immediately complied when police asked us to turn off our lights explaining the grainy shots viewers complained about.
9. We avoided tampering with evidence at crime scene. Instead, we asked Soco to shoot the video instead of entering the bus ourselves.

This wasn't enough.

We acknowledge airing a report that detailed the position of the police during the assault.

During the arrest of Gregorio Mendoza, we considered pulling away from the coverage but a man was crying for help.

In other countries around the world, governments set the ground rules for situations like this. One network cannot unilaterally declare a news blackout. Press freedom issues take a back seat during situations like this - where the government already has the power to define the terms to media.

We are taking the public's views to heart. Monday's tragic events triggered intense soul-searching for us. Such is the irony of a profession that wields so much power but relies entirely on self-doubt to gain --- and keep --- its credibility.

We ask our broadcast colleagues to join us in an industry review. Let us unite and work together to put in place measures to collectively decide when we stop live coverage in the absence of government presence of mind.

ABS-CBN STATEMENT ON AUG. 23 HOSTAGE TRAGEDY

Media's job is to tell the story, but no story is worth even one life.

We will always cooperate with authorities in trying to resolve complex situations like the Aug 23 hostage crisis.

If the government had called for a news blackout, ABS-CBN would have supported it.

We are done with an initial assessment of our coverage and continue to review our policies.

We exercised self-restraint on Monday:
1. We refused to air the hostage taker's threats live about a 3 pm deadline to avoid fuelling public fear.
2. We refused to air the hostage taker's interview until after negotiations were finished.
3. We refused to be part of hostage negotiations.
4. All throughout the day and until the first shots were aired, we kept our cameras 400 meters away from the bus, giving us shaky video that viewers complained about. Our teams never crossed the police line.
5. Although we had access to members of the police reaction team, we held back interviews which could compromise their plans and/or location.
6. After the police tried to arrest the hostage taker's brother, our team physically stepped back to comply with police request. As was seen on video, that space was quickly filled in by other journalists.
7. After the assault began, we tried to limit our shots to avoid showing police movements. We stayed with extreme close-ups or wide shots.
8. We immediately complied when police asked us to turn off our lights explaining the grainy shots viewers complained about.
9. We avoided tampering with evidence at crime scene. Instead, we asked Soco to shoot the video instead of entering the bus ourselves.

This wasn't enough.

We acknowledge airing a report that detailed the position of the police during the assault.

During the arrest of Gregorio Mendoza, we considered pulling away from the coverage but a man was crying for help.

In other countries around the world, governments set the ground rules for situations like this. One network cannot unilaterally declare a news blackout. Press freedom issues take a back seat during situations like this - where the government already has the power to define the terms to media.

We are taking the public's views to heart. Monday's tragic events triggered intense soul-searching for us. Such is the irony of a profession that wields so much power but relies entirely on self-doubt to gain --- and keep --- its credibility.

We ask our broadcast colleagues to join us in an industry review. Let us unite and work together to put in place measures to collectively decide when we stop live coverage in the absence of government presence of mind.

A CALL FOR SELF-EXAMINATION (NUJP)

National Union of Journalists of the Philippines
August 25, 2010

A call for self-examination

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) grieves for the loss of so many lives in the hostage-taking at the Quirino Grandstand on Monday.

We condole with families of all the victims of this tragedy and we join the calls for a thorough and swift investigation on why and how the bloodbath happened.

The Philippine government and the Philippine National Police have already acknowledged errors and shortcoming in responding to and addressing the incident. We believe that they were primarily responsible for supposedly controlling the situation, ending the crisis and ensuring the safety of the hostages.

But even as we grieve, we call on colleagues in the media to seriously and comprehensively examine how we covered the crisis and if our coverage in any way contributed to the tragic end of the hostage-taking.

It is media’s responsibility to cover events and report these as comprehensively and truthfully as possible.

But some colleagues clearly violated ethical standards and established procedures and guidelines in covering crisis situations including hostage-taking incidents.

Various media institutions and journalism scholars have laid down guidelines in covering crisis situations including hostage-taking. We urge news organizations to abide by these guidelines and to ensure that those it assigns to cover these crisis situations are adequately trained and informed.

We also encourage media owners, leaders and organizations to meet and agree on a set of protocols for the industry to guide us during similar situations.

The hostage-taking incident has once again highlighted the need for more trainings and education on our ranks to make sure that we do more good than harm in the performance of our work.

But even as we examine our actions and admit mistakes and shortcomings, we stand firm against abrogating our right to cover important events of public interest.

We oppose House Bill 2737 filed by Cebu Rep. Luis Quisumbing and similar measures aimed at imposing a media blackout during crisis situations. Legislated restrictions on media coverage are more dangerous and could pave the way for abuses and excesses by authorities in responding to crisis situations.

Reference

Nestor P. Burgos Jr.
Chairperson
+639177256333

*The blog owner is a member and former chair of the NUJP
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NATIONAL UNION OF JOURNALISTS OF THE PHILIPPINES
4/L FSS Bldg. # 89 Sct. Castor corner
Sct. Tuason Street (near T. Morato Ave),
Bgry. Laging Handa,
Quezon City, Philippines
Tel.: (+632) 3767330
Email: nujphil@gmail.com
Web: www.nujp.org (under construction)
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Are you a journalist under threat?
Report it to NUJP’s Threat Hotlines:
*(+632) 3767330
* Email: nujphil@gmail.com
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“There can be no press freedom if journalists
exist in conditions of corruption, poverty or fear”
– IFJ
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YES, THEY TRIED. AND HOW

Media is not perfect. (You should hear journalists b_tch!) Our natural tendency is to go for the great shot, the great line, the ’scoop’ — and that is across all platforms. We spend lots of hours and lots of breath — and yeah, lots of tears — trying to come up with safeguards against the possibility of being desensitized of all other considerations. That’s an all-media reality.

It would be self-serving to cite all those foreign reports (bbc, cnn, hk papers) as proof that we, media, are the good guys and that the cops were the bad guys. In the first place, Monday’s event wasn’t a game of cops and robbers.

This was a long day with many groups of people — Hongkong residents and officials not the least — running around trying their darn best to make some sense of an unraveling horror. You do not need to be a blame seeker to understand what “authority” means or what “leadership” is (or to feel sad at the glaring absence of the latter).

The other night was my first time on the other end of a monitor. Without dismissing viewers’ concerns and criticism, and standing by an earlier blog, here’s a tidbit from the new kid on the block:

This is what I said that night as everyone went home, and said very humbly… Now I know just how hard folks in broadcast work and how complex the choices at hand — when a dozen screens are lit up with possibles and 30 people before you, around you and across the metropolis are all trying to get heard all at the same time.

Maybe I’m just a new fan, enjoying a brand new world (yes, that’s a cliche!) — but also not a blind fan. What I saw and heard was a hall of people (and another set of folks on the other side of the monitors) trying to do their darn best to do right and — yes, those in the newsroom and on the ground — to self regulate and adjust accordingly every second of that long, bitter day. There was no movement that didn’t cOme with a cautionary word, a word of warning, yells to shift or stop even as DO became DID.

But yes, we will always need (and will always be grateful) to have the public as our conscience.

CHRONICLERS OF MAYHEM

“Mulling over all reactions... I will say this: there is little talk (nor thought) of ratings when lives hang on the balance. And however flawed coverage may be -- and there will always be flaws -- journalists do care about the lives they cover. But like the authorities and the comfortable we are professionally bound to afflict, media will have to listen with grace to criticism.”

I’ve had one good friend pooh-pooh the above statement, written mid-morning after a mostly sleepless night (as most journalists hereabouts must have experienced). After a couple more hours of gazing at the ceiling and reviewing Internet clips of yesterday’s Quirino Grandstand tragedy (all stations) and what radio stations reported (all stations), I am standing by that statement.

At the Manila Pen, at the Bicutan siege, at other incidents, I evoked media’s duty to cover events as they unfold. I know that is not the core issue now being raised by critics of our profession. Last night and today, the angry reactions focused on a couple of things:

• Live coverage of the hostage-taking incident;

• Erroneous or premature reports (of the number of dead, for example)

• Pandering to dismissed cop Fernando Mendoza’s “grandstanding”;

• Letting SPO2 Gregorio Mendoza, brother of the hostage-taker, go primetime with his drama – and in the process provoking the dismissed cop into acts of violence; and

• Doing step-by-step accounts of the assault on Mendoza.

(This post does not aim to critique the cops’ performance or the national government’s response (or non-response) to the hostage crisis. Let’s leave that for another post.)

In its “Guidelines for Covering Hostage-Taking Crises, Prison Uprisings, Terrorist Actions,” Poynter.org states:

“Challenge any gut reaction to "go live" from the scene of a hostage-taking crisis, unless there are strong journalistic reasons for a live, on-the-scene report. Things can go wrong very quickly in a live report, endangering lives or damaging negotiations. Furthermore, ask if the value of a live, on-the-scene report is really justifiable compared to the harm that could occur.”

I have always had one simple rule of thumb. Journalists cover events. Newspaper, radio, television and Internet teams will always try to present an unfolding story from varied vantage points. When authorities tell us to desist from live coverage, we consider that (notice the caveat in the above cited rule).

When media does live coverage, then it must consider what to air and not to air. It is true that live coverage is dangerous: It is harder to do the usual gate-keeping work like double-checking facts and choosing one’s words, especially when reporters themselves are in the line of fire.

There are reasons that media go live and not everything has to do with ratings.

Yes, ratings are a given in television and radio, and hits for web-based media enterprises. The race can lead to sensationalized reporting and dog-eat-dog scenarios where the focus is on the competition and not on the story or its repercussions. But that should not blind us to other facets of our national reality.

There are reasons why desperate people in this country -- whether they are contemplating suicide, fleeing for their lives or holding people hostage -- run to media. These reasons have also a lot to do with the murders of journalists in this country. However problematic some journalists are; however shaky their ethics, in many areas of this nation they are sometimes the only people standing between powerful groups and individuals and the communities they seek to cow.

Quirino grandstand, of course, is not in the boondocks. It looms over Luneta, in the heart of Manila, the center of power in this archipelago. Manila is also where, not too long ago, a naked man flipped and flopped on cold tiles as his prick and balls were jerked here and there by another man we’d all been taught to respect as our protector.

Manila is where Mendoza was once accused of entrapping and extorting from a young man (though there are friends and colleagues who insist Mendoza was the good guy framed by rich and powerful malefactors). Manila is also where soldiers seeking redress are silenced by edict, by arrest or by other means. Manila, let us not forget, is also where men grabbed Jonas Burgos, who remains missing to this day. (Yes, we have failed to cover other victims and yes, sometimes it is because a story is not 'sexy'.)

I do not know if Gregorio was indeed an accessory to a crime (there is no acceptable excuse for hostage-taking). He wasn’t a gatecrasher. Rightly or wrongly, he was asked to help. He identified too well with the suspect; not surprising as they were brothers.

I do know this. If a man before me cries that he is being persecuted and on the verge of being disappeared (temporarily or permanently), I will not turn my back on him. I will not interfere when cops wrestle him into submission, but neither will I pretend to be blind.

Should there have been an instant decision to impose a news blackout so as not to provoke the hostage-taker?

The entire day’s coverage was live. Cops and officials agreed to interviews knowing the incident was being covered live. They ordered the arrest and grabbed Gregorio knowing coverage was live. No journalist or cop has noted any request – anywhere, any time, to anyone –that live coverage stop.

Having said that, I must stress the following points:

Media should try to resist talking to a hostage-taker (certainly, not interview him live). The hostage-taker may suddenly decide to transform an interview into a negotiation. And journalists have no business being negotiators. Period.

If we get an unsolicited call from a hostage-taker, we should just take down whatever is said but not get involved in any bargaining ploy;

Nor are we psychologists, so let’s not jeer at the hostage-taker; certainly not in his hearing;

We are not negotiators so we shouldn’t even debate on the pros or cons of a hostage-taker’s conditions. Nor should we listen to those who want that debate;

There should be no step-by-step accounts of assault operations. That is a different call from live reporting. Even when the authorities fail to request for such, journalists should try to keep it in mind. If reporters (who in the ‘heat of battle’ may not be able to pull back from the fray) start giving away information, superiors should find a way close the gates – or head off reporters to safer realms.

Of course, in an age where mobile phones can take sharp still and video images, when kids can afford to buy Flip cameras, one could argue that the rest of the world could put one over media. (Certainly, a friend of a hostage-taker could give him those sensitive images and in the crush – a teenager got hit in the crossfire! -- the effort would have been missed.)

These developments add pressure to media work. But the world is already a terribly complicated place, where roles of lawmen and lawbreakers merge in an unholy mess and the law itself acts like shifting sand. We journalists would serve this world better by trying to record these changes without getting trapped in the muck. We must thus learn better to sidestep the dangers.

It is hard keeping pace with a world where today is already on the verge of being passé. Especially when, at the same time, modern technology sometimes fails us: Audio can fail and desks and reporters, whether from the print, broadcast or digital media, could get cut off from each other. But we just have to try. And we are.

We cannot always agree with our audience. But we will always agree that they, too, share our best intentions – even when they call ours to question.

THE BIG CHILL

There are times when words are superfluous.

A man writhing on the floor, limbs jerking, his torso twisting with every pull of a string; this classic of a Pavlovian experiment on pain hardly needs annotation. A group of uniformed men impassively watching this hardcore performance art; what words could possibly explain that obscenity?

Tears at the Commission on Human Rights; a flinch, nay, several, from its acting head Coco Quisumbing (a former journalist who must have seen her share of atrocities). A newsroom falling silent, a cry oR two punctuating every televised twitch of pain. Drivers huddled around the roadside cafeteria’s radio, imagining what they cannot see. Mothers and wives and children and lovers across the nation wondering: what if he was my husband, lover, brother, son?

There are places our minds can hardly bear to tread. The man pulling at that string; what psyche pulses within?

We know violence; we know rage. This is something else. The deliberate, methodical pacing of the lasso and the lash; the almost crooning “lessons” imparted with every jerk; the rapt attention on the face of the giving end of that rope.

Under other circumstances, that man would be in a straitjacket. In a world where might is often presented as proof of righteousness, that man is an officer of the law.

As was Himmler and every Nazi torturer. As was the man who left a bloody trail across Luzon and the Visayas – sometimes they are even called heroes. It is not surprising to hear Quisumbing say that the CHR has an investigation caseload of more than a hundred cases of torture.

There are crimes so heinous they sweep away every comfortable rationale we’ve ever used to explain why it is “okay” some of the time to violate civil liberties, or why a word like “basic” (as in rights) comes with exemptions. The Ampatuan massacre is one crime, the torture of this still unknown man is another.

Let us rage, yes. And demand justice, yes.

But let us not forget that we are complicit in this crime – marginal accessories to be sure, but accessories all the same.

How many times have we shrugged off a murder of a journalist whose reputation was less than white as snow? How many times have we ranted (even silently), “kaya kayo pinapatay!” (that’s why they murder your ilk). When we think ignorance, uncouthness or even corruption is a good enough excuse for murder or any other form of violence, that’s a slippery slope we’re on.

When we accept, however, grudgingly that it is okay to kill an activist because he or she is probably playing footsie with communist guerrillas, we open the gates to all kinds of justification for murder.

When we cheer, however quietly, when old comrades are gunned down in the name of “people’s justice” we make work harder for defender of human rights.

When we praise berdugos for ridding our cities and towns of those pesky addicts, snatchers, holdup artists, we are saying, it’s okay for people in authority to violate the law if the result provides us a greater degree of comfort.

When we in media show footage of snatchers getting beaten up, or police precinct scenes of ordinary folk slapping and scratching at a suspect, and do not provide the all-important context – that this is a violation of a basic human rights -- we, too, are complicit in this.

So, too, when our race for ratings and circulation makes us drop the ball after a sensational week or two, as we go on to other stories that are breaking and, thus sexier, stories.

It is a heavy burden to impose on our sector, I know, but reality shows time and again that impunity is also partly due to short attention spans. There is no shortcut: conviction is what ultimately defeats a culture of impunity.

Democracy is messy, yes. We can understand why cops feel frustrated: they are overworked, underpaid, lacking of equipment and often at the mercy of imperious local government officials and their patrons in national government. You walk the tough streets of Tondo for a decade or so, you see criminals walk in and out of jail and hear your kids complain about not getting the education the children of other government officials enjoy – you’ll begin to ask if it’s worth it.

But there can be no other answer. There should be no other answer. Many years ago, a fine young police officer told me, in rather angry tones, while discussing a rubout he had personal knowledge of: “then why is it okay for rebels to kill?!” He went on to serve officials with a long list of massacres and murders to their names, and are now waging rearguard action against Lady Justice.

It is easy to weep for Cory, for Ninoy, for our heroes and our saints. The real test of our adherence to democracy and its principles is when the least lovable of our citizens face the gun and the blade and the whip as they are sacrificed at the altar of law and order.

THE FISHERMAN'S SONS

This isn't so much an essay as a remembrance of some passages that stand me in good stead when my faith in the servants of God wavers.

There are a couple of books that are sources of strength for those days when fear, despondence and cynicism raise their ugly heads. "To Kill A Mockingbird" is a favorite. Another is from a later era though it tackles themes dating back of the days when warm bodies flitted to and fro the catacombs.

The film never did match the depth of Morris L. West’s novel “The Shoes of the Fisherman”.

Science, rebellion, crime and salvation, power and compassion, rage and redemption -- the story of life, the history of human kind distilled in a work of such integrity it refuses to give us a pat ending.

Our parents taught us about a loving God who understood the difficult choices faced by his children. They introduced us to flawed but compassionate priests. It is to their credit and God's grace that the horrid, tawdry and evil things perpetrated by shepherds of His flock have failed to jar us into letting go of that radiant strip leading up into the promised land.

It is a destination, that land. As old-time Pilgrims know, WHEN isn't as important as HOW.

When shepherds become wolves, when the road to salvation becomes a nightmare, when too many of God's children are sacrificed to the exigencies of power, there is West, with his wry humor and dogged belief in the tenacity of goodness, to prop up wavering faith.

When one begins to wonder, West shines a light on what can be.

And so this passage, from the time of Conclave, when two of the Church's most powerful princes -- the Camerlengo Cardinal Valerio Rinaldi, and the bulldog of the Sacred College, Cardinal Leone -- muse about what-ifs should they be given a chance to live their lives over.

Cardinal Leone:

“I’ve thought about it often... If I didn’t marry- and I’, not sure but that’s what I needed to make me halfway human- I’d be a country priest with just enough theology to hear confession, and just enough Latin to get through Mass and the sacramental formulae. But with heart enough to know what griped in the guts of other men and made them cry into their pillows at night. I’d sit in front of my church on a summer evening and read my office and talk about the weather and the crops, and learn to be gentle to the poor and humble with the unhappy ones…

"You know what I am now? A walking encyclopaedia of dogma and theological controversy. I can smell out an error faster than a Dominican. And what does it mean? Nothing. Who cares about theology except the theologians? We are necessary, but less important than we think. The Church is Christ- Christ and the people. And all the people want to know is whether or not there is a God, and what is His relation with them, and how they can get back to Him when they stray.”

Rinaldi:“Large questions, not to be answered by small minds or gross ones.”

Tonight, I go to bed praying for priests with hearts that understand those who cower in the dark.