Conflict of interest

REPORTER NIKKO Dizon, whose byline appeared in the April 24 Philippine Daily Inquirer article “Bayan clears NPA: No extortion, it’s civil war“, covers the defense beat for the said newspaper. She recently completed her Master’s in National Security Administration at the National Defense College of the Philippines and has been commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the Armed Forces of the Philippines Reserve Force, according to an Inquirer report.

Dizon’s staying on as defense reporter creates a conflict of interest between the public’s right to fair, balanced and accurate reports and a predisposition to present in a favorable light the defense and military establishments with which she now has links. As CMFR has pointed out before, “conflict of interest involves loss of autonomy and freedom as other values and interests may play into the selection, placement, and the telling of the story.”

Pressure from those individuals and groups with an interest in being favorably presented in the media  is among the possibilities that may arise when a reporter is in such a situation. Awareness of this possibility is the basis for the common prohibition by responsible news organizations against journalists’ becoming members of political parties, part of government agencies, or even involvement in civic and social groups that may be in the news and which have a stake in being favorably presented in the news media.  The defense and military establishments certainly qualify among those groups that have an interest in how the press reports them. The solution is simple enough. It is to assign those in such potential conflict of interest situations to another beat.

Read PJR Reports‘ monitor on the issue: Another Inquirer “mistake”