By Rjay Zuriaga Castor
Journalists, bloggers, content creators, and academic scholars in Western Visayas recently joined forces to achieve a common objective: to develop a comprehensive guideline for safety, ethics, and newsroom practices for multiplatform journalism.
The guidelines are the result of a three-day seminar workshop spearheaded by the Philippines Press Institute (PPI), with support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation and in collaboration with BANTALA UPV Media Excellence Awards and Iloilo Media-Citizen Council.
“It is a highly focused training program for Western Visayas media and the output and the offshoot of the training is the guidelines,” PPI executive director Ariel Sebellino told Daily Guardian.
Sebellino said that the seminar-workshop is “one for the books” and a “history in the making. He emphasized that the guidelines created in the region can be replicated in other areas.
“Western Visayas has a different media landscape and I think the initiative is to trailblaze so that others can follow suit,” he added.
“This is what the region needs. It is not PPI imposing the participants to come up with the guideline, it’s the group or the proponent who thought about coming up with guidelines,” Sebellino added.
Francis Allan L. Angelo, chairman of the Iloilo Media-Citizen Council (IMCC), said the guidelines will provide valuable information and guidance for handling situations that may necessitate ethical and safety considerations.
“The product that you came up with is not an imposition, that is a guide. When we go back to our respective newsrooms, we will have something to read when we are confronted with certain situations that might require some ethical and safety considerations,” he said.
Dr. Zoilo Andrada Jr., Project Development Assistant for Mass Media and Communication of UP Visayas, said “there is a need to gather or convene journalists in the Western Visayas to address problems regarding the use of social media.”
Andrada, who steers the BANTALA UPV Media Excellence Awards, proposed the project to the IMCC and PPI.
The draft guidelines will undergo further refinement and are expected to be officially launched during a conference to be hosted by the Iloilo Media-Citizen Council in September 2023.
SAFETY AS A PRIORITY
Len Olea, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) secretary-general, said it is important that a guideline takes into consideration the local context and the challenges faced by journalists on the ground.
“It will improve the safety of journalists on the ground and it takes into consideration the local context, which a general guideline could not always provide. This initiative is laudable and I think it should also be replicated in other areas,” she said.
Olea was one of the speakers at the seminar-workshop where she discussed good digital hygiene and cybersecurity habits.
Jun Aguirre, an independent journalist from Aklan, said that if policies have been established, journalists will be aware of the do’s and don’ts while in critical coverage, which helps minimize potential risks and dangers.
“Kapag may policies ng naibigay… at least aware ka na kung ano ang gagawin muna in case of war [or] disasters, mas male-lessen or minimize yung risk mo for dangers kasi aware ka na na kailangan pala ensured yung safety mo,” he explained.
Aguirre added that it is crucial to establish guidelines and protocols that journalists can follow to ensure their safety since some journalists do not often adequately assess the dangers of a particular zone or situation.
Rey Espeja Umalay, station manager of the 2-year-old Radyo Bandera Iloilo, reiterated Aguirre’s point saying “we (journalists) tend to forget our own safety just to cover all the scoops and to gather all news information without thinking of our lives.”
As to online security, Lyneth Mendoza, assistant manager for the GMA Kalibo’s radio operations, expressed a genuine need to implement security features to prevent and protect their pages or online platforms.
A NEED FOR GUIDELINES IN REPORTING
Aguirre said that through the guidelines, media practitioners can now have a framework to gauge their actions and decisions.
“Hopefully, ang mga kasamahan din natin sa industriya will accept the standards para tumaas naman yung standards of reporting natin at iba pang competencies,” he added.
Umalay said the guidelines will be significant to newbies in the media industry, particularly on how to act in the field based on the standards set.
“It could really help those reporters na bago pa lang sa industriya on how they will deal with these certain situations, especially in covering different types of scope of news beats,” he said.
He also noted that in the digital age, news outfits should have practices that would collaborate with the digital perspective or operations.
“It could also help the practices that we have already been doing inside the newsroom. Ang mga bagong inputs dito na hindi pa natin nadidiscover because our knowledge is more on traditional media experiences,” Umalay explained.
While GMA Kalibo already has established rules and guidelines in place, Mendoza said she has identified certain additions that can be incorporated into their existing set of rules and regulations.
“We have our own set of rules and guidelines pero may mga napagusapan tayo dito na pwedeng i-add doon sa existing namin na rules and regulations,” she said.
Aljohn Torreta, a former broadcast journalist of Aksyon Radyo Iloilo, said that during his time in the industry, there were no clear guidelines in place for media practitioners.
“When I was in the industry, wala sang guidelines. Depende siya sa internal policy of the media outlet if they have. It is very important to develop one, especially when the sentiments concern media practitioners from the traditional and digital media,” he shared.
Torreta added that by creating one, the media industry in Western Visayas is leaning towards the idea of better journalism.
As for the Iloilo Bloggers Society (IBS), a community of legitimate bloggers and online influencers in Iloilo, they have “no existing guidelines” yet but only follow “verbal customs” within the organization.
IBS, however, expressed that they are open to gathering ideas from the guidelines and assessing their potential impact on the organization.
Claire Marie Algarme, a member of the Negrense Blogging Society, Inc., highlighted that since they primarily operate through an online platform and most members work individually, having a guideline would serve as a valuable point of reference.
“Having a guideline would be more of something that we can refer to every now and then. This is also something that will safeguard us in the future,” she said.
(Updated to correct the statements of Ms. Len Olea in the 12th and 13th paragraphs)
