EDITORIAL - Another questionable presscon

Last Wednesday, the Basa family held an impromptu press conference at the Senate, prompting questions regarding the propriety of allowing outsiders to use Senate facilities for entirely personal purposes.

It is unclear whether the questions were answered properly or got answered at all. The succeeding events at the Senate entirely obliterated any further need to explain that press conference, more so since the Basas themselves appear to have reconciled with the Coronas.

But no sooner had that press conference faded into the sunset than another presscon popped its head into the nation’s consciousness with even more pressing questions regarding even worse improprieties.

This other presscon is no other than the one called by Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, who felt the need to answer certain points mentioned by Chief Justice Renato Corona in his impeachment trial at the Senate.

The questions, however, do not deal with whatever Morales may have said in her presscon, but rather about how they proceeded, particularly with regard to how the media present conducted themselves in the pursuit of their duties.

Journalists, it is often said, are not supposed to take sides in a story, unless it is to express an opinion in an opinion piece. In other words, objectivity and cold neutrality is the working order for all members of the press in the performance of their duties.

Members of the press are not supposed to figure in the stories they cover, are not supposed to get themselves into the news. Journalists are not supposed to be for one or the other in any conflict that is the basis of any story they happen to be working on.

But in the Morales press conference, journalists repeatedly broke into applause and laughter each time Morales appeared to score a point against Corona or uttered something funny at the expense of the chief justice.

Never mind Morales being openly contemptuous of the chief justice because that is what she called the presscon for. But why were the media laughing and applauding and otherwise egging Morales on? Have they lost all balance in this time of greatest challenge to media credibility?