Why did it make the headlines?

Like Ms. Monsod, I was just as surprised to be in the same program with her. I did ask the caller from ANC who the other guests were and she was not one of them. Had I known she was beforehand I would not have joined the show. It is a matter of personal distaste.

The way I understand it Ms. Monsod’s brief against me is that Inquirer had made a mistake in publishing a ‘complete falsehood’ that Manalac was the surprise witness in the ZTE Senate investigation, and that if it accepted the mistake and apologized that was enough. She would like the story to end there. “Listening to this explanation, I thought the Inquirer’s behavior was unexceptionable(?) a mistake was made, an apology was offered, an investigation was conducted, presumably not only to find out how the mistake was made but also to ensure that it does not happen again. End of story.” “Chit Pedrosa, however, wasn’t having any of it.”

Ms. Monsod misunderstands the point of the column I wrote about the Manalac story. But since she does not read the STAR, let me explain what it was about. The point of my column last March 15 entitled “A Complete Falsehood” was that an apology might have been sufficient to vindicate Mr, Manalac, but there was the public interest still to be served. In my view if it had been merely a question of inaccuracy, the apology would have been sufficient. But in a case where everything about the story was false and it still made the headlines, then there is a question of policy arising out of an editorial culture within the newspaper. The question was whether to publish or not to publish in the absence of confirmation from the subject itself and the decision was not only to publish but worse to make it the banner story.

It points to a difficult question: What was the motive that led to its publication? I did venture that the newspaper had a proclivity for agenda setting and many readers have wised up to its agenda.

 Motive or malice is next to impossible to prove. Still many questions will be answered if it did get to court. Like the Senate hearings which are televised daily, a televised hearing on the Manalac story would be an “unexceptionable” opportunity to educate the public about media and its responsibility in the shaping of our nation.

I eagerly await the report on the investigation of how such a falsehood like the Manalac story could have made the headline. There are already hints of what the public can learn. According to Mr. Yambot, Tony Bergonia received the information from a heretofore reliable source, and that a senior editor had received similar information from another source. Who are these sources Inquirer considered reliable? That will say a lot on how editorial policy is made in the Inquirer. There may have been a “disagreement within the newspaper staff, with two senior editors arguing against the story’s publication, but they were overruled by a more senior editor” as reported by Ms. Monsod. So who is this senior editor and why could he or she overrule the two others even with the absence of such a cardinal rule as checking out if the story is true or false?

It is neither ridiculous nor funny to advance the public’s capacity to demand sufficient and accurate information from media. A continuing and wide discussion of the issue would help bring out aspects of editorial decision making. I was pressed to answer whether I thought the publication of the Manalac story was malicious. I did not fall for that one. It may or may not be malicious under the rules of a court of law but it certainly would have made a point even if it merely opened up the question of why the all-powerful media in the Philippines behave the way they do. The Inquirer may not have sacred cows to quote Ms. Monsod, but it is a sacred cow itself. People are so afraid of it, they would not bother about pursuing a matter like the Manalac story.

It is editorial policy that should be under scrutiny and demands answer on how a complete fabrication like the Manalac story could have made the headlines without checking with the subject of the story itself. Please, may I remind Ms. Monsod, the policy and article in question was in the Inquirer not in the STAR. It is a lame excuse and unhelpful to the public to say that if STAR does the same, why shouldn’t the Inquirer especially because it apologized?