Very bad taste

The Philippine Daily Inquirer has apologized for publishing last Wednesday a combo of photos showing the various facial expressions (contortions would be a more accurate description) of Demetrio Vicente as he testified at the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona. 

 The Inquirer should do more than just apologize. It should make restitutions with Vicente for the injury it must have caused his person. The photos tended to make fun of his physical defects, as well as to pass judgment on his credibility. 

 When you caption a combo of photos with the statement “The many moods of defense witness Demetrio C. Vicente” and those photos show a person struggling through involuntary facial muscle spasms, the intent to ridicule almost literally leaps out from the newspaper page.

 And the only motive for that ridicule is to challenge the credibility of the witness, which is not the responsibility of a newspaper merely covering the proceedings of a court trial. To do that is to become a participant in the trial, to be partisan. 

 If the story needed photo support to help create perspective, a single photo would have sufficed. In journalism, the resort to a combo of photos is generally to capture the essence of a series of actions. 

 But when you use a combo of photos whose only series of actions is that of an old man (Vicente is 70), cheeks contorted, mouth open, struggling to form words with a twisted tongue, then there has to be something more than just the need to put context in the publication. 

 Besides, the caption completely obliterates any and all alibis about absence of malice. If anything reeks of malice, it is that combo of photos. And the number of people in the social media who rose up to condemn the photos could not have simply missed the point. 

 And all the more that restitution should be made because, even as the Inquirer apologized, it really did not. It never acknowledged its fault. All it said was it was aware the photos “offended some of its readers” and it was “not its intention to disparage Mr. Vicente.” 

 An apology that does not acknowledge fault is an apology that is not sincere. Standard apologies made by newspapers, and they do are made every once in a while, always come with an acknowledgement of the error. None was ever made by the Inquirer in its apology. 

 Except for an occasional need to fill space, the use of photos is deliberate. Just as deliberate is the choice of photos. For instance, a story about an angry President Aquino firing an erring official will look ridiculous if his photo shows him smiling.

 Sometime ago, another newspaper carried the story about the United Nations appointing Hollywood star Angelina Jolie as ambassador of goodwill, and then threw in a large photo of Jolie in a string bikini. No photo could have been more inappropriate for that kind of story. 

 Photos sometimes make or break a story. For instance, had the Inquirer used just one photo, even one from that same combo of photos showing Vicente in his various “moods” as how the paper put it, it could have escaped accusations of malice.

 But a combo of photos? Even if the intent is indeed to put up the moods of anyone on display, why pick on Vicente? Was it because he was a witness for the defense? Senator Miriam Santiago would have been a more interesting subject. Or Vitaliano Aguirre for that matter.

But Santiago would not have taken lightly any attempt to showcase her moods, dark, light or otherwise. As to Aguirre, he is a private lawyer for the prosecution, and therefore is not to be hit by friendly fire.