Reuters says it sent questions to Palace a week before story was published

Reuters on Thursday refuted the claim of Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque that he was given a limited time to respond to the questions of the international news agency.

“The claim that Reuters gave the President’s office just an hour to respond is untrue,” the news outfit said in a statement.

Roque has cried foul and accused Reuters of “bad journalism” following its detailed report on the killings carried out by the so-called “Davao Boys” in the narcotics unit of the Station 6 of the Quezon City Police District (QCPD).

Roque claimed that he was given an ultimatum of just an hour to respond and give Malacañang side on the report.

“She (Reuters reporter) gave me an ultimatum of one hour. I did not meet the ultimatum. And therefore, I would not comment on the story because that’s bad journalism. You don’t write a story and give government a timeline to respond, otherwise, they will go ahead and publish a story. I thought that was really foul,” he said in a Palace briefing.

The Palace official found it “arrogant” that Reuters did not wait for Malacañang’s comment.

But Reuters belied Roque’s claim.

“Reuters sent questions to the president’s office a week before the story was published and the president’s office confirmed it had received them. Reuters followed that up with phone calls and emails, but the president’s office never responded to our questions,” it said.

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