Trials of a profession

The role of the media was once again tested during Monday’s hostage crisis at the Quirino Grandstand. Does the media, in carrying out its duties, remain impervious to the possible effects their actions may have on the outcome of the story they are covering?

Many are asking this question because, rightly or wrongly, the media is now being accused of having contributed toward forcing the hostage crisis to spin out of control. Sadly, this isn’t the first time the media has been similarly accused. Remember the Peninsula Hotel seige?

Anyway, the importance of media itself cannot be assailed. It was live television that kept a horrified but rapt global audience updated with its non-stop blow-by-blow account. It was one of the biggest things on international television this year.

In fact, CNN, BBC, and Channel News Asia all kept a substantial amount of their air times riveted to the episode. CNN, which cut its teeth in crisis, even flew in its reporter Anna Coren to ensure it has someone on the ground to do live reports.

There is, however, something uniquely circus-like in the way the Philippine media carries out its coverages. And it also has this sobering tendency to become almost inextricably part of the stories it covers.

In the Peninsula seige, members of the media, wittingly or unwittingly, became human shields for the rebel soldiers and thus not only interfered with legitimate police operations but also became part of the story itself.

During the hostage crisis last Monday, a sideshow involving a brother and other relatives of the hostage-taker was played up to the hilt on television, woefully ignoring the fact that the hostage-taker was monitoring developments on the bus television.

Of course the media can always say it had nothing to do with how the events unfolded. But nowhere in the world of journalism is there anything that assails prudence as a hindrance or obstacle to the responsible discharge of the duties of journalists.

The brother and relatives of the hostage-taker were clearly playing up to the media. Whatever may have brought them to the situation they found themselves in, we will know only after they are investigated. But only a fool could not see they were using the media for some motive.

Yet the media sadly played into the ruse. It saw only the trees, or what was before the cameras. They regrettably failed to see the forest, the larger picture, which was that the longer the circus was played, the more enraged the hostage-taker was becoming.

To those who are quick to invoke press freedom at the slightest inconvenience, I am sorry to say that is a grievous mistake. There is no absolute freedom anywhere, press or otherwise. All freedoms demand the exercise of responsibility even in their enjoyment.

It should have occurred to a responsible press that the continued airing of the circus starring the hostake-takers relatives was not a healthy contribution to the unfolding events.

It was clear to everyone but the media that a judgment call needed to be made.

That no such call was made is a serious indictment of where the priorities of media lie. An unfolding story does not lose its relevance if, for a far higher and nobler interest, focus of attention is taken away from one scene and redirected to another.

In fact, the media does this all the time. In all television stations, there is always someone who directs which of many cameras should go on air at a given time. All that was needed actually was a certain degree of prudence and responsibility.

It may be worthwhile to emphasize that none of the western networks who were doubtless closely monitoring the unfolding events ever showed even the smallest footage of the circus that the Philippine media chose to air relentlessly.

After the smoke of battle cleared, and the bodies of the innocent have been taken away, much of the blame was heaped on the hapless Philippine police for botching its handling of the crisis. But there are those who look at us in the media strangely. Sadly, I know what they mean.