THE TV NEWS MEDIA came under heavy flak for their coverage of the bloody climax of the hostage-taking of 22 Hong Kong tourists on Monday last week that left eight of them dead.

The withering fire came from the Aquino administration and the Philippine National Police who blamed the TV networks for fanning the carnage, as the authorities tried to deflect scathing criticism from the public and Hong Kong government for the ineptitude and insensitivity in handling the hostage crisis.

Philippine authorities claimed that they never considered imposing a news blackout to restrict TV coverage of the unfolding police rescue operations and accused the media of revealing sensitive information during negotiations with the gunman over the release of the hostages that provoked him to massacre his victims.

Criticism of media coverage has also plunged the media?s self-policing institutions and news organizations into a frenzy of self-criticism over whether they had breached police security measures to avert deaths or violence on hostages, or whether, in their zeal to scoop one another to get the details of the police story first to the public, they might have contributed to further violence and loss of lives.

The recriminations between the government and the media rekindled the old issue simmering underneath the skin of government-press relations over the limits of the media to reveal sensitive information in the pursuit by the press of its functions to provide essential information to satisfy the public?s ?right to know? what?s going on in public affairs that vitally affects the lives of citizens in a democracy.

Put differently and reduced to abstract terms, the issue boils down to how much information or detail citizens are entitled to in order to enable them to make intelligent and informed opinions.

Overdose of information

After reviewing the details of the coverage of the hostage crisis, there appears to be an overdose of information by the on-spot, minute-by-minute, TV coverage?information that the citizens did not really need except to satisfy their curiosity, information that was more important to the police in conducting the rescue operations.

This disclosure of the operational aspects of the bungled police operations, far from helping control the crisis, led to the tragedy of the unnecessary loss of lives.

Senior Supt. Agrimero Cruz, the PNP spokesperson, said live coverage might have ?telegraphed? the moves of forces on the ground to the hostage-taker.

But another police official was more critical, saying that ?there?s blood? on the hands of the media. ?We could have worked out the safe release of the hostages if TV and radio stations were more careful in their reportage.?

Another police official said the blow-by-blow accounts of the broadcast media enabled hostage-taker Rolando Mendoza to monitor the sensitive police actions aimed at ending the siege. The official said Mendoza ?was able to monitor our moves from the TV installed on the bus. Some of the radio reports even revealed the positions of our snipers.?

These criticisms echoed President Aquino?s views that TV news got inordinately involved in the hostage drama in breaking police line and in shooting extraordinary footage, ?giving away whatever the police was doing.?

He said media?s intensive coverage ?provided a wealth of information? to Mendoza, who was watching TV on the bus ?throughout the whole time.?

Media divided

The press itself was divided over the TV?s excessive coverage. The Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) maintained that the broadcast networks adhered to the KBP code and protocols governing media conduct.

The code provides, among other things, that in crime and crisis situations, broadcast media are urged not to ?put lives in greater danger than what is already inherent in the situation.?

It further says that ?the coverage of crime or crisis situations shall not provide vital information or offer comfort or support to the perpetrators.?

The Inquirer, in an editorial on Aug. 27, strongly disagreed with the claims of the KBP, saying, ?The broadcast media cannot wash their hands for triggering the bloodbath; at the very least, they cannot ignore the fact that they had worsened the crisis.?

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said ?it was a case of showing it too much, not too little.? It acknowledged that media violated rules and procedures in the coverage of a crisis situation.

Blow-by-blow coverage

Prof. Luis Teodoro of the University of the Philippines? College of Mass Communications, who edits the Philippine Journalism Review, said the blow-by-blow coverage was unnecessary. He said media violated protocol when it aired sensitive footage of the standoff in the negotiations.

Teodoro added that media might have focused on ?getting information and beating the competition,? but forgot about the safety of the hostages and the impact of their killing on the country?s image.

These faults of media coverage might have shifted attention from the government and police bungling, but the shift clearly failed to mitigate the President?s paralysis and inaccessibility at the height of the hostage-taking.

Aquino runs this country, but he was invisible to reassure the country that he was in charge when his presence was urgently needed.

Still, we are stuck with the issue highlighted by the crisis: What?s the extent of the public?s right to know all the sensitive details concerning crisis situations, such as the hostage stalemate?

This issue is relevant to diplomatic negotiations on foreign affairs and treaties, where utmost confidentiality is needed for their success.

Not entitled to know

Any leakage on procedures on work-in-progress negotiation can compromise national interest, scuttle negotiations, and even trigger wars. What, for example, did the public lose if we did not know the blow-by-blow developments in the negotiations over the hostages? release?

There is information that the public is not entitled to know, withholding of which is not prejudicial to public interest.

This is not a brief for self-censorship by members of the press in covering sensitive negotiations, whether they are over security, hostages or diplomatic events.

This is about restraint or exercising sound judgement on what information to disclose or reveal essential to enable citizens to make informed opinions on public issues.

The press has no right to swamp the public with rubbish.