Conde also related tales of journalists being ostracized in their beats and being denied access to information by their sources because of their reportage on human rights. In one case, according to Conde, a journalist was warned by a military general not to set foot on a military camp again.

There is also the mindset among journalists to treat certain subjects, such as human rights, as belonging to the fringes and to be ignored. In my own experience in human rights advocacy, we have encountered journalists who told us that unless a human rights case is sensational – because of the sheer number of victims, the grossness and brutality of the violation, or there is direct evidence linking a high government official to the crime – it would never be published or aired.

This mindset for the sensational may also be the reason crime stories permeate tabloids, broadsheets, radio and television news reports. This is also the source of the scoop mentality that afflicts most journalists. Objective but sensational – sounds contradictory, doesn’t it?

Aside from the mindset of journalists, some stories do not see the light of day because it impinges on the sensibilities of editors, publishers, sponsors, companies, or agencies that place ads on the media agency concerned.

These problems emanate from the orientation and nature of the press in this country.  The media are supposed to be “objective,” whatever that means.  But every event has a cause, and every story has different sides to it. What to emphasize is now left to the writer, the editor and the publisher; and that is where the subjective position of those concerned comes in.  I would rather be, “panig sa katotohanan, panig sa bayan” (stands for the truth, stands for the country) than “walang kinikilingan, walang pinoprotektahan” (does not take any sides, does not protect anybody) because the second is a fallacy.

A media agency also operates as a business venture and that is where the objective interests of the stockholders come in.  Added to this, journalists have a job to keep and protect; losing a source, the inability to chase and come up with sensational stories, and touching on the sensibilities of publishers could mean losing their jobs.

Freeing the press

The unabated killings of journalists and the power that local political warlords continue to wield in the provinces; the continuous pressures being exerted by the Arroyo administration on the media; the serious implications of the decision of the Makati Regional Trial Court which virtually legalizes police repression on media; and the self-imposed limitations of media agencies and journalists – they all affect the freedom of the press (or the lack of it) in the country.

These problems seem insurmountable but they are not. We are not lacking in stories of people from the media who have defied the powers-that-be.

Philippine press freedom icon Jose Burgos defied Martial Law by publishing the We Forum in 1977, the year the protest movement against Martial Law was on an upsurge. He was subsequently arrested and the We Forum office raided and padlocked in 1982.  Burgos was not cowed by the Marcos dictatorship and he published Malaya which was also critical of the dictatorship immediately upon his release.  There were also many lesser-known journalists who did the same all over the country. They reported about the numerous human rights violations and excesses of the dictatorship and published news about the growing protest movement in the country.

These men and women of the media who dared to defy the Marcos dictatorship were the product of the intellectual ferment and growing protest movement against Martial Law at that time and they contributed significantly to it. They dared to make a stand against the evils of the dictatorship and joined the Filipino people in bringing it down. In the process, the Filipino people freed them from their encumbrances and they joined the people in their fight for freedom. That was the peak of press freedom in the country.

Press freedom is not measured by the lack of censorship – because it would always exist whether from pressures of the government and its security forces, certain segments of the population such as fundamentalists, or by the corporate interests of media agencies themselves – but by the political will and actions of the people and journalists in confronting it.

Some media persons say that press freedom is the foundation of all the rights of the people.  On the contrary, press freedom is the result of the people’s assertion of their rights.(Bulatlat.com)

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