Essential adversaries
The press serves public interest when it remains a skeptic and adversary of the State. This is not merely media theory. It is a view shared by President Rodrigo Duterte with media guests during a Christmas party he hosted on Dec. 12.
“It’s always adversarial,” the President told journalists and photojournalists, referring to the relations between Malacañang and the press.
In the democratic public sphere, the open, rational, and vigorous discussion of issues by all stakeholders—citizens/Netizens, the press, the State, civil society—is necessary for the participation of an informed, critical, and activist public who leads in promoting and defending its welfare, including that of marginalized minorities.
Despite his perception that the “(media’s) truth is not (his) truth and everybody’s truth,” the President acknowledged that each participant had “work” to do and a “mandate” to fulfill. Disagreements are part of the “territory,” he said. Despite claims that “Journalism is dead” in the age of new media and the internet, the press remains essential for democracy. Legacy media—a term referring to older media that existed before the digital media—retains a credibility for many citizens, despite criticisms raised against it.
University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman professors Clarissa C. David and Maria Diosa Labiste observed during an Oct. 25 forum conducted by the College of Mass Communication (CMC) of UP Diliman that the legacy media is increasingly sought by citizens made wary by the proliferation of “fake news” in social media.
David singled out newspapers while Labiste observed the unexpected resurgence of radio among the public.
Compared to social media and some news websites that post articles without attributing information to credible news sources and crosschecking facts, the legacy media follows journalistic standards and ethics, such as accuracy, fairness, and balance.
On the other hand, the legacy media must also acknowledge its role in creating and circulating “fake news.” Former UP CMC dean and deputy director of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) Luis Teodoro pointed out in his blog that, “The pronounced use of social media in the spread of false information has made it seem as if it were a new phenomenon and that social media are entirely to blame for it. But ‘fake news’ via the old media of print has been around for over a century, and has been disseminated to manipulate public opinion for or against individuals and groups, State policies, and even entire nations.”
Fact-checking is the response of journalists to mass disinformation. As it declares on its website verafiles.org, the news website VERA Files practices fact-checking to monitor “false claims, flip-flops, misleading statements of public officials and figures, and debunk them with factual evidence.”
Fact-checking is one mechanism of accountability journalism, which demonstrates that the press exercises rigor in checking and crosschecking information before publishing and disseminating this, as well as demonstrates the humility to admit and correct mistakes it has published or posted.
Complementing the vigilance of media self-regulation is media literacy. Media advocacy groups like the Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC) lead other stakeholders, such as the academe and civil society, to understand better how media operates and how essential to democracy are the freedoms of the press and of expression.
A media-literate public will serve as a more effective watchdog of the press, which in turn is the watchdog of the State and other elites. Beyond criticizing the press for its lapses and oversights, an empowered citizenry will defend a free press against attempts of politicians and other elites to impose new forms of regulation to control journalists, bloggers, and other communicators accused of spreading “fake news.”
The key to preserving democratic space begins with an adversarial and accountable press.