PNA vows to review procedures after flak over photos

MANILA, Philippines — The state-run Philippine News Agency on Tuesday apologized for running stories with erroneous facts and photo and promised to review its reporting procedures.

In a statement, PNA acknowledged a lapse in judgment in recent stories that, it said, earned “much criticism.”

On May 27, PNA ran a report titled “Urban warfare a challenge for soldiers in Marawi” that used a photo of a soldier on patrol supposedly taken in Marawi City. Netizens however recognized the photo as a cropped version of an image taken in 1966 during the Vietnam War.

LOOK: Gov't news agency PNA uses Vietnam War photo for Marawi-related news. Also fails to credit Wikipedia. pic.twitter.com/yiJRkbnzpH

— Tonyo Cruz (@tonyocruz) May 29, 2017

“On Monday, it came to our attention that the photo, a scene during the Vietnam War, was sourced from Wikimedia Commons. Upon learning of the error, we immediately took the photo down but not before it was shared by our readers and subscribers,” PNA said.

Apart from using an inappropriate photo, PNA was also in hot water in mid-May after it posted an article titled “95 nations in 3rd UPR convinced no EJKs in PHL.” It claimed that 95 nations in the 27th Universal Period Review of the UN Human Rights Council were convinced that there were no extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. 

The article reached the UN Human Rights Council, which took to Twitter to clarify that the article was incorrect. 

#UPR27 Clarification: To our best knowledge, 95 states were not "convinced that EJK is non-existent". Full webcast:https://t.co/3BTqrM2DQ3

— UPR Info (@UPRinfo) May 19, 2017

Vera Files also conducted a fact check on the article, which was described as “fake news” —  a term that has been used for propaganda that has been made to look like a legitimate news report.

“DILG Assistant Secretary Epimaco Densing later denied saying some of the information in the PNA report. As soon as we learned of the error, we held the May 15 report and interviewed Assistant Secretary Densing so we could issue an accurate report thus, the story titled, “PHL's human rights situation commended at UPR,” PNA explained.

After its mistakes, PNA assured the public that it will uphold accurate reportage.

“While there have been lapses in our judgment, it has never been the policy of PNA to tolerate erroneous [reports], and it has certainly never been our intention to sow misinformation, much less share what is termed nowadays as 'fake news',” the news agency said.

“We regret that these mistakes have cast doubt on our integrity as a news agency. Rest assured we have dealt with our erring personnel and that we are reviewing our procedures on reportage as we continue to uphold our commitment to deliver accurate and balanced news reports to the Filipino people and the world,” it added.

PNA is an agency under Presidential Communications Operations Office headed by Secretary Martin Andanar. It became a web-based newswire service in 2003 but was initially launched as  teletype newswire service on March 1, 1973.

With Andanar at the PCOO is Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson, a pro-Duterte blogger who said that she would use her position to spread "correct news" to Filipinos. According to a Rappler report, Uson herself has recently shared a photo supposedly showing security forces in Marawi City in prayer but that actually showed the Honduran police.