Exercising Freedom for a Free Press

by Agustin Martin G. Rodriguez

In the face of the tragedy of the hostage taking last Monday, many Filipinos are quite clearly disappointed with the media’s handling of the matter. It seems clear that the lack of restraint that the television and radio stations exercised contributed to the terrible outcome of this crisis. Many viewers felt that the broadcasting in real time of the dramatic arrest of the hostage taker’s brother and the broadcasting of the movements of the SWAT teams would further disturb an already disturbed hostage taker. Why didn’t the networks go with this instinct? What were the network executives thinking?

The issue is complicated for certain. Television and radio news serve the public as much as they serve big business interests. Their business is not only to report the news and inform the public but to generate enough income to make their vocation viable enterprises. Thus, sometimes their instincts are muddled.

The more thoughtful among us asked why couldn’t they shut off the live feed? Was their desire to fill every second of air time with chatter and video of the crisis really fueled by their awareness of their responsibility to keep the public informed? If they had delayed the reporting on the arrest of the hostage’s brother and the disclosure of the movement of the SWAT teams, would they have deprived the public of vital information? What, aside from the drama and the circus, did the live feed give us? No doubt we were all glued to our television sets because we wanted to know what would happen next. But we really didn’t need to know. Our need for drama did not override the hostages’ right to a safe resolution to this crisis. However, it was vital for the networks to keep airing their live coverage.

From the ABS-CBN statement on their soul searching, they asked their fellow industry members to “…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.” This collective decision to stop live coverage is essential because if only one station decided to play it safe and stop the live coverage, then they would have lost in the ratings game. Maria Ressa justified their airing of the hostage drama by saying that if they had stopped the live feed “we would have been criticized by the viewers or what viewers would have done is switch stations.”[1] This is what is so dismaying about their response: after the whole tragedy and the criticism, their justification lie in the ratings.

After all the criticism, there has still been no acceptable expression of culpability from the television and radio networks. Of course we shouldn’t expect a full expression of culpability that is not couched in language that will protect them from lawsuit or criminal liability. However, from their own attempt to explain what they did, it is clear that they didn’t feel that they could on their own decide to control their actions. It was as if their executives were driven by a transcendent machinery with motives beyond their own capacity to discern the good and which kept them from deciding what the best, most compassionate, and responsible thing to do was. Maria Ressa said “When there are no rules, we push for what we can get.”[2] That is true and perhaps it is the most responsible journalistic thing to do, i.e. go for the story. But is it not also their responsibility—they being the head of the news desks who are away from the action and not being driven by the reporter’s instinct to get as much of the story as they can—to decide on their own what was responsible and irresponsible to broadcast in the heat of the unfolding drama?

It is worth looking at ABS CBN’s statement of self examination. In that statement they implied that they were acting responsibly by being this way:
1. After the police tried to arrest the hostage taker’s brother, our team physically stepped back to comply with police request.
2. After the assault began, we tried to limit our shots to avoid showing police movements. We stayed with extreme close-ups or wide shots.
3. We immediately complied when police asked us to turn off our lights explaining the grainy shots viewers complained about.[3]

They did say that these measures taken were not enough but they are implying that nonetheless they were acting quite responsibly given that they were acting according the some instinct within themselves that they could not regulate. And it seems the instinct here is the need to please the viewers, not in order to respond to their right to know but to respond to their need for entertainment. Because they did step back but they still showed the arrest close-up, they limited their shots and took these shots wide but they still showed clearly where the police were, and they did turn out the lights but we all could see what was going on quite clearly. And someone from outside will wonder how essential all these shots were for the public's right to legitimately know the truth and be informed of vital issues—remembering all this while that lives were at stake.

Surely, the government should have acted better in all of this and exercised their police powers to regulate the networks whose concerns are always colored by the need to entertain and provide information to their viewers. But the networks should also remember that they are a public service and should be able to act more responsibly. After all a free press should be able to act with a free will for the good. This means being able to make better decisions for the good of society. And to do this, they must examine what forces drive their instincts to keep the screens filled with images that may have led to tragedy.

*picture courtesy of BBC News