Making up the rules

ONE OF the least enlightening and least knowledgeable of the comments the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s publication last March 13 of the photographs of Corona trial defense witness  Demetrio Vicente provoked was the claim that the media don’t have ethical and professional rules; “they just make them up as they go along.”

Former congressman, newspaper publisher, and ABS-CBN commentator (via his “Teditorial” on that network) Teodoro “Teddy Boy” Locsin, Jr. made that not quite unexpected claim,  Locsin having made a career out of inflicting on the public some of the most outlandish views on record on just about everything. Locsin recently defended Miriam Defensor Santiago from criticism for her uncivil behavior during the Corona impeachment trial, for example, arguing that her only problem was that she “knew her law.”

At one point during the  year 2000 “all out war” then President Joseph Estrada attempted to wage against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the same Locsin declared that the Moros were not his brothers, while hailing Estrada’s less than thoughtful adoption of the tried, tested and failed purely military approach to the conflict in Mindanao. Locsin was wrong on both counts. Her knowledge of the law isn’t the only thing wrong with Santiago, and whether he likes it or not, the Moros are, by virtue of history and politics, Locsin’s brothers nevertheless.

Locsin is of course also absolutely wrong about journalists’ “making up” the ethical and professional rules of journalism “as they go along.”  Journalists’ organizations from Azerbaijan to Zanzibar have drafted and adopted such rules, and what’s more have committed them on paper and online. US newspapers, TV and radio networks and their online versions have not only had such rules in place for years; they also make it a point to encourage observance among their peers through their websites. There are also organizations such as the Poynter Institute and publications like the Columbia Journalism Review that regularly evaluate press and media performance on the basis of the by now widely accepted principles of professional and ethical practice.

In the Philippines, the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) Broadcast Code has been in place since the martial law period, and has in fact been revised a number of times.  Prior to the martial law period, the Philippine Press Institute drafted in 1971 The Philippine Journalists Code of Ethics, which in 1987 it disseminated among its newspaper-members. Some Philippine media organizations, among them the Inquirer, GMA7 and ABS-CBN, have their own internal rules of conduct.

The details  of these Codes and Protocols vary, but they agree on certain principles, among them the basic responsibility of truth- telling, which in practice demands both factual and contextual accuracy; and humaneness, which in practice expects the journalist to treat with respect the subjects of his reporting, commentary and analysis.

Although the ethical and professional rules that should govern the practice of journalism are there in the Codes of Ethics and other protocols that have been published and in many cases are given wide publicity, the rules aren’t really all that complex. They are in the first place derived mostly from such basic human values as telling the truth, being compassionate, and not causing others harm. Secondly, their application in practice is relatively simple, such as, for example, checking one’s “facts” to make sure they’re indeed facts, and avoiding getting one’s information only from a single source to avoid being misled and to verify the truth or falsehood of contending claims.

Although for some reason some practitioners find it difficult to respect the subjects of their reports, to tell the truth, or not to cause others harm, compliance with the basic human values through the observance of rules that are actually quite simple and easily understood is hardly the work of saints and heroes, only of decent human beings.

Ethical behavior in journalism shouldn’t require written rules, only a basic sense of decency. Just the same, however, journalists,’ media and media advocacy groups all over the world have found it necessary to commit those rules to paper and online for the edification of those who practice journalism without being familiar with its standards and values, as well as its rules. The latter are the ones who “make up the rules” “as they go along”—and who then claim, on the basis of their own practice, that journalism isn’t governed by any rules.