Scribes urged to observe due diligence, fact check stories

Journalists should observe due diligence and fact check their stories after the cyber libel conviction of Rappler head Maria Ressa indicated a case of "bad journalism,” Malacañang said yesterday.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque appealed for responsible journalism a er a Manila Regional Trial Court found Ressa guilty of violating the country's law on cyber libel.

The court ruling on Ressa and former writer Reynaldo Santos Jr. was in connection with a complaint filed by businessman Wilfredo Keng over an alleged defamatory article.

“You have to be careful with what you report. You have to observe professionalism, at most, diligence, in reporting only the truth. You have to fact check,” Roque said over ANC “Headstart” program when asked about the implication of the 12-year prescriptive period of cyber libel on journalists and other people posting online.

"You cannot call someone a criminal without a decision of the court convicting him for a crime and certainly you need to get the side of the subject,” he added.

Roque insisted that the case of Ressa was not about suppression of press freedom but about accountability. He claimed there was no fact-checking made in the allegations hurled against the businessman in the Rappler story.