The truth about journalism

By: Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc - 9 years ago

PANORAMA STAFF Chelo Banal-Formoso (left), photographer Nestor Fernandez, the late Fred Reyes (seated), artist Jojo Gatbonton, the late Angelita Consignado, LJM, Domini Torrevillas, Randy Urlanda, Albert Lee and Margot Baterina NESTOR FERNANDEZ

(Editor’s note: This editor’s column by Magsanoc was published in Panorama Magazine in 1981, as an introduction to the rejoinder written by a member of the Marcos Presidential Press Staff. But President Marcos banned the magazine’s issue that had published this column and seized copies of the magazine still in circulation. The write-up finally saw print after the assassination of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983 when it was published in the book, “Philippine Press Under Siege,” in 1984.)

Our responsibility and objectivity as journalists are severely criticized on page 32 in the article, “The Truth About Chico Dam” (by Consorcio Borje). We look like two centavos, publishing a story that damns us. But in the interest of balanced reporting—said article being a response to “Was Macli-ing Killed Because He Damned the Chico Dam?” (Panorama, June 29)— we are printing it in its entirety with all its biases intact. Including its omissions (I’m quoted out of context), and its accusations that we might well be propagandists for those who are out to undermine the goals of the New Society and/or courting disaster by flirting with communists. The last one really hurts because we so abhor being labelled, tagged, packaged and stamped with a number like some lifeless statistic of a technocrat’s Five-Year Plan.

Also the article is worthy of space here because it is written by one of the country’s leading fictionists who is now a member of the Presidential Press Staff. And over there, as Shakespeare might put it—“So are they all, all honorable men.” They cannot be but honorable men because with their access to the center of power, they could endanger the national welfare and dishonor their role as the voice of the government, and ultimately and ideally, that of the people.

Duty to express and expose

The fact that we published the article from the government spokesman means that we accept criticisms. But what we cannot accept is the tone or the attitude of the article. The manner in which it is written implies that a journalist becomes irresponsible because his view is divergent from that of the authorities and, because he dissents, he is automatically a subversive. Because journalism at its noblest reflects a frame of time in our society, the journalist has the duty to express and expose not only beauty but terror; life as well as death; virtue as well as vice; truth as well as falsehood. So critical is the journalist’s role as chronicler and critic of society that he is protected by the constitution and the laws of this country. He’s only subject to criminal and libel laws. The United Nations subscribes to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 of which provides that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Recognizing the media’s vital role in the New Society, President Marcos has often urged the press to snap out of its timidity. Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile has always assured the “timid” Philippine press that no newsman in the exercise of his profession will be arrested.

Responsibility and freedom

I had a two-hour conversation with Deputy Defense Minister Carmelo Barbero before whom I assumed full responsibility for the “offensive article” on Macli-ing. He said he was shocked that the author of the article Ma. Ceres Doyo had told him during the hearing of Barbero’s Human Rights Committee that it was up to her to choose to write what she pleased. Barbero invoked the responsibility of the press as well he might. But he did not mention just how free the Philippine press is. Responsibility and freedom go together; the one without the other is meaningless. But he was willing to listen to my stuttering defense of journalism. I felt that with Barbero, a very human factor in the defense ministry’s civilian affairs, there is every reason to eagerly hope that the government and the press, despite differences, can sit down and start a healing communication going.

The press might ask why it should be expected to be a tool of government, a propagandist (there—a dose of your own medicine) for its goals and programs. The journalist might as well join the Presidential Press Staff. He has no business being in media.

Why should the government be expected to be the only source of news? We will be handed out truth and fiction and how to tell the difference, when the public has the right to know what is going on in his government because his taxes keep it going and it is, therefore, responsible for his general welfare. When government becomes the exclusive news source, we will have nothing but good news: That all barangays from day to day, from morning till night, throb with dedication in their pursuit of the quality of life; that Metro Manilans are the epitome of The Good, The True and The Beautiful, singing the national anthem as they go about their work in the perpetually glossy city scented with sampaguitas; that all government officials are hard-working, honest and pillars of integrity. That is the perfect but unreal society and President Marcos will be the first to admit (and has often, in fact, said so) that we cannot hope to achieve Utopia and survive on fantasies.

Bounden duty

We accept government as a source of news but it is also its bounden duty not to deny news from other sources, no matter how unfavorable to its aspirations. It is unreal to even suppose that the government is the lone repository of the truth. It is good for any society, when its government allows for a choice of viewpoints. It may shake up that society but it can only come out of that clash of opinions invigorated and stronger and united than ever. If that society’s government collapses, don’t blame the dissent that started it all as recorded in a free press. That government must have been puny and weak to start with and buckled under the convulsion caused by the outpouring of divergent ideas.

This has not been a defense of Ms. Doyo or the late lamented Macli-ing, but of the hardworking members of the working press who are often confused by the government’s attitude, if not accused outright with labels, that brand them as enemies of the state. They— we—can only be saved by dignity and integrity, but only if we have kept faith with truth in the whole life.