With the recent comments from President-elect Rodrigo Duterte on media killings, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) urged journalists to play the role of adversary when covering him.
"We should not be defensive at all, we should be adversarial. That’s a basic aspect in the terms of engagement between a news subject and the media. You should be adversarial, you must be challenging, you must ask the pointed questions to get to the truth," said Vergel Santos, chairman of the CMFR Board of Trustees, on Friday.
The media, Santos noted, has been "professionally under-reacting" by not asking the incoming chief executive more challenging questions, and he supposes the journalists are taken with the peculiarity of the man.
"They are taken with the novelty of the peculiarity of the man. They haven’t seen someone like this, someone in the presidency like this especially. They’re taken with the novelty," he said on ANC's Dateline.
He also took time to remind journalists of the tenets of their profession to be able to cover Duterte more effectively.
"You know how to cover a news subject. When he makes a sweeping statement, you ask him, 'give me cases.' If you are unclear of what he says, you tell him, 'clarify, clarify [for] me, sir'," he said.
The terms of engagement, he said, should not be re-written by a news subject because "it is a tradition in a democracy, so long as we remain a democracy, the terms of engagement will be so."
He added, the laughter that developed after Duterte catcalled GMA-7 reporter Mariz Umali is not only indulgent on the part of the journalists present, but is "really adding insult to injury."
"I mean your own colleague is laughing at a remark with [glaring] sexist undertones. You don’t even ask him, 'did you mean this?' We all know what he meant when he said [that]," said Santos.
On Tuesday, Duterte drew flak for whistling at Umali in response to a question she raised during a press conference in Davao City.
But presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo explained that Duterte's action can't be construed as an immoral conduct. He said the incoming president's action only shows that he is fond of the TV reporter.
Umali's husband, co-journalist Raffy Tima, however, took offense, describing the president-elect's action as "wrong in so many levels."
Source: ABS-CBN
Source: ABS-CBN
