Forum speakers: Journalists must be ethical in reporting

Journalists should be grounded on firm ethical and moral foundations in practicing their profession.

This was the common gist in the issues propounded each by the three resource speakers in yesterday's forum "Three Prisms on a Troubled Craft" held at the Marcelo B. Fernan Cebu Press Center in Lahug.

The speakers were Agence France-Presse Manila Bureau chief Karl Wilson, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism director Ma. Lourdes Mangahas and Fr. Romeo Intengan, SJ.

The forum was the last of a series for this year's celebration of Cebu Press Freedom Week, and was sponsored by Coca-Cola Export Corporation with Rejoice and Score as support groups.

Wilson told the audience, composed of media practitioners in Cebu and journalism students, that the basic rule for a journalist is the code of ethics.

While Wilson said ethics does not put food on a journalist's table, he believes ethics has no compromise and that it is still self-respect, pride, and professionalism that make a good journalist.

Having practiced the profession for different media organizations in various countries, Wilson believed it is not only the Philippines that experiences a troubled media. Problems of sensationalism and overbearing are also problems of all media around the world, he said.

In these trying times where the public questions the news they read, hear or view, Wilson said the media are facing a difficult task of defending integrity.

So media's responsibility does not rest on just getting both sides of the story but it is its duty also to give the skeptical public the truth because they have the right to know it, he said.

"Media changes public perception," Wilson said, adding that there is a "pronounced shift now on how the public views us."

Wilson also attributed the lack of formal journalistic training or background as among the causes why many media practitioners here do not practice professionalism.

Wilson cited a recent study, which showed that majority of the 25 journalists killed from 2000-2005 did not have formal journalistic background.

Mangahas said the kind of credibility that lasts is the credibility that is built on ethics. "Would you bribe, seduce, cheat, steal, injure or kill to get a story?" she started her lecture on journalists' ethical dilemma.

She said there are three lines of defenses that make a credible and respectable journalist. These include maintaining accuracy and fairness in a story, an organized and supportive newsroom, and the public's awareness on a journalist's job.

"There are journalists who are credible but not ethical," she said explaining that the two are not synonymous with each other.

Press freedom is "the right of the people whom we represent" and that what is enshrined in the Constitution on freedom of speech but this does not mean media people are "special."

"Don't think we are special because we are not," she said, adding that press freedom is all about the rights of the people to privacy, for one. There are media people who are jailed for coming out with erroneous stories, which prove that they are actually not protected by the Constitution.

Every journalist should be ethical in his craft. "Ethics is a personal call of the journalist," Mangahas said stressing further that accuracy and fairness are non-negotiable and that more than accuracy in facts is accuracy in concept and impression in a story.

Fairness, she said, could be achieved by weaving a story out of direct sources, official sources, expert sources, and the community or the man on the street.

Mangahas said in situations that challenge a reporter's judgment call, the newsroom should be supportive enough to address the dilemma like the formation of an ethics committee.

She believed that journalists are persons first before becoming media practitioners, thus, their paramount goal should be protecting the sanctity of human life.

"Our press might be less fettered but probably the most corrupt...public service is about telling a story the best way we could, the most fair and free way," she said.

Entengan, for his part, said a journalist should consider several things in practicing the profession including the preservation of human dignity; the common good; competence and responsibility; and sincerity, honesty, and truth. - Joeberth M. Ocao and Liv G. Campo