Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility

The Center for Media Freedom & Responsibility (CMFR) was organized in 1989 as a non-stock non-profit foundation to support the difficult work of enhancing ethical and professional values in the Philippine press. The CMFR community includes journalists, academics, members of the business community, and civil society groups.

Since 1986, when the Marcos dictatorship was overthrown and the institutions of liberal democracy restored in the Philippines, political events had demonstrated the critical importance of the role of the press in public affairs and how indispensable press freedom is to a democracy.

When CMFR started its work, it did not use the term “watchdog” of the press. But media critics have often used the term to describe its work. CMFR has succeeded in institutionalizing the idea of internal checks to prevent the abuse of press freedom, or to use a more familiar term, self-regulation, so as to enhance press freedom.

To protect and strengthen the free press as a pillar of democracy;
To establish a framework of responsibility and ethics in the practice of the press;
Raise levels of competence for coverage of special areas of news;
To promote journalistic excellence; and
To engage different sectors of society in building up a free press in the Philippines

Since 1990, the Center has published the Philippine Journalism Review (PJR), first as a quarterly, and later as a bi-monthly, as a monitor of news coverage and a continuing forum for the discussion of current media concerns. PJR is not just a publication, it is the result of the continuing monitoring of how the press covers and reports on events so as to encourage best practice. It is sent to over 500 journalists in print and broadcast media around the country as well as academics.

A ground-breaking project, PJR notes failings in accuracy, clarity and context, as well as fairness and balance. PJR has developed into a valuable teaching resource for faculty in a number of universities where mass communication and journalism courses are taught. PJR was modeled after other journalism reviews in West but it has served as a model for other press communities in Asia, where, so far, such publications are still a rarity.

In 2005, PJR was reformatted into a monthly. Now called PJR Reports, the publication is released monthly to make the material more accessible to journalists, academics, journalism students and the public. PJR, however, has been republished as a refereed academic journal. Initially published annually, its first issue in this format was released June 2007.

CMFR has also done monitoring and content analysis of the media coverage of women, Mindanao, and Philippine elections since 1992. In its 2007 election monitor, CMFR included the coverage of television. Since more and more Filipinos are getting their news from TV, PJR Reports now includes a review of broadcast news.

Another CMFR flagship project promotes and encourages in-depth reporting, specifically investigative and explanatory journalism, through the Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism (JVOAEJ). The JVOAEJ program serves as a memorial to recall the efforts of the late Jaime V. Ongpin to strengthen the “alternative press” during the latter years of the Marcos regime. While the PJR Reports’ media monitor scores the faults and weaknesses of coverage, the awards provides encouragement for good work.

To select the winners, CMFR conducts an independent scanning, screening and judgment process to search out the best investigative work of the past year.

The program initially recognizes the importance of investigative skills for effective journalism and awarded with a single category the best in investigative reports for the year. In 2002, CMFR added a new category, that of explanatory reporting, thus the change of program name. Through this category, CMFR promotes more straightforward explanations of developments, programs and processes, as well as controversies in the news. In this category, the reporter does not have to un-cover some hidden truth through original research, which investigative reporting does. Rather, the explanatory report can piece together information that is already out there, thereby clarifying what is difficult to understand, and providing the context that is so invaluable to public understanding of issues.

In 1995, CMFR began the JVO Journalism Seminar Journalism, which brings finalists for the JVOAIJ awards in a panel discussion of the best stories for the year. This program invites the academic community together with university and college students so they can be introduced to the practice of journalism and to possible role models in the field.

Two embassies have provided study grants and tours to the firs prize winners, the Marshall McLuhan Fellowship of the Canadian Embassy for the winner of the first prize in investigative category and the Australian Ambassadors’ Award for the first prize winner of explanatory awards.

In addition to the two flagship activities, CMFR has developed training programs in special areas of news coverage responding to needs reflected in news coverage:

To a spate of violent crimes against women (Women and Gender/ Population and Reproductive Health)
To the continuing war in Mindanao and other issues of conflict (Peace and Conflict-Resolution)
To the Growth of NGOs (The issues of Civil Society/NGOs)
To the Rise of Crime (The Criminal Justice System)
To the Economic Crisis (Business and Economic Issues)
To Poor Governance Media and Policy News
To corruption in the Media (Media Ethics and Professional Standards)

CMFR also joins the efforts of other groups including the Philippine Press Institute (PPI), Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP), and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), among others, in providing training services in their programs.

CMFR organizes conferences and press forums on current issues as they arise. From 1997 to 2000, CMFR organized roundtable meetings on the libel, conflict of interest, corruption in the media, and readers’ complaints, It held in Manila, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore and Malaysia roundtable discussions to help journalists understand how Access to Information is linked to Effective Governance.

CMFR continues to break new ground to enhance the practice of press freedom not only in the Philippines but also around Southeast Asia.

In 2001, CMFR inaugurated a regional publication, Journalism Asia (JA), which joins journalists in Southeast Asia to review, analyze and evaluate how the press is faring in the shifting political environments around the region.

In the Philippines, CMFR started a national effort to form regional Citizen Press Councils in different parts of the country. Such an institution will engage the participation of civil society members in addressing public complaints and grievances against the press. The concept of the CPC is patterned after the British and Australian practice to check press misconduct and abuse of media freedom.

CMFR pioneered in the reporting of the killing of journalists and attacks on and threats to press freedom according to established international standards in Asia. CMFR sends its reports to the Toronto-based International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX), Reporters Sans Frontieres, and the Southeast Asia Press Alliance.

CMFR now serves as secretariat of a larger coalition of media organizations, the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, Inc, which uses the Center’s data base in its advocacy and press freedom protection work.

CMFR is a founding organization of the Southeast Asia Press Alliance. CMFR executive director was elected member of the IFEX council.

In 2006, CMFR led in the filing of a class suit for abuse of right against the husband of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who had been filing libel suits against dozens of journalists since 2003. By 2006 the number had reached a high of 46 reporters, columnists and publishers whom he had sued in 11 libel suits. That suit led to Mr. Arroyo’s dropping his libel suits in 2007, but CMFR and other media groups and journalists are continuing the class suit to encourage the making of a landmark decision on whether the right to sue for libel can be limited by the attempt to use the libel law to silence journalists.

CMFR relies on a consortium of local and international funds to sustain the difficult work of media monitoring. A permanent staff of six researchers, all journalism graduates, assures a professional evaluation of case studies.

Contributions from corporate and individual friends support a wide range of CMFR’s activities. CMFR relies on donations to help cover non-project expenses such as salaries, equipment upgrading and upkeep of other overhead costs.

CMFR received in 1993 the Catholic Mass Media Awards for Public Service for the publication of the Philippine Journalism Review. In 1998, CMFR received the “Chino” Roces Award given by the Joaquin Roces Foundation.

CMFR executive director, Melinda Quintos de Jesus, was chosen as the Benigno Aquino Jr. Fellow for Journalism for the year 2000.

In 2005, CMFR won second prize in the “ethics and values” category of the Templeton Freedom Awards of the United States-based Atlas Economic Research Foundation.