Amidst the confusion and publicity gained by the Abu Sayyaf rebels’ abduction of ABS-CBN news caster Ces Oreña-Drilon, together with her crew members Jimmy Encarnacion and Angelo Valderama, and Mindanao State University (MSU) professor Octavio Dinampo in Maimbung, Sulu, GMANEWS.tv released a brief account of the group’s exploits in the hands of the dreaded terrorist group.
With this incident came several issues on news embargo and other matters of media people’s ethics. ABS-CBN, for their part, explained their motives for requesting an embargo on Drilon and company’s plight, saying that such “gentle request” was made for the sake of the abductees’ “security and safety”, although several news outfits did not heed to their appeal.
The Abu Sayyaf (“father of the Sword smith”) rebels, the most prominent Islamic separatist/terrorist group in the Philippines, have been staging armed insurrection in Mindanao for almost 30 years now. They were responsible for the high-profile bombings, kidnappings, assassinations, and other crimes not only in far south but also in Metro Manila as well. With this, they were named as one of the world’s most dreaded terrorist group, as they have been named in the Foreign Terrorist Organization list.
Along this line, much has been said about the ethics of news embargo and the implications that it stirs in the news and journalism profession. Jon Geer and Michael Bush, in their articles dated December 11 and 12, 2007 respectively, shared their views on the practice of news embargo. In the same manner, Bob Steele of Poynter online, and Maxine Clarke also discussed briefly the downside and the benefits that news embargoes bring to the table.
Similarly, Kathryn Wenner of the American Journalism Review writes:
“News embargoes The very idea of them seems to go against the journalistic grain, yet reporters have lived with them for years, mostly in routine fashion.
A lot of science and medical journalists–working in a field in which embargoes are common–appreciate having official release dates for news, for the same reasons that officials use them: They level the playing field between news organizations of varying sizes and improve stories because reporters have more time to digest and flesh out complex topics. Newspapers sign embargo agreements with medical and scientific journals all…”
posted by: Erickson Beco, August 23, 2008 (Saturday)
