Because the relatives have not been informed, DZMM of ABS-CBN exercised full restraint and did not just blurt out the names of the fatalities.
Instead, their reporters and anchors reported how many had been declared dead and how many injured; the names of the hospitals in which the casualties had been brought and the phone numbers of the hospitals so that the families could confirm or verify. It (DZMM) also released the names of the injured who had been cleared by the hospital as “out-of-danger” so that their relatives could attend to them. Reporters of the news organization also covered the bombing not just from the crime scene or not just by interviewing policemen but went to the hospital so they could confirm their facts first-hand instead of relying on statements of the police. The anchors also did not just report body count but provided context by giving some historical background of the bombings in the city, but restrained from speculating. Stand by for developments.
xxx
Update: After the relatives had been informed by the police, DZMM released the names of the fatalities; that was a few seconds ago.
Here it is, the video, snippets, below this intro: The lively and fast-paced episode of “Media in Focus” made possible by host Cheche Lazaro, the producers, the director. Check out the tracking shots, the new set.
Blog admin was able to catch the entire show (cannot upload the whole episode because it would constitute an infringement, you can upload excerpts for review purposes). So, these are the snippets of the discussion on criminal liability.
Apologies for the quality of the digitization; blog admin’s doing.
Also: that Tuesday, 3 hours sleep, flyover at 5:45am to be in Ortigas; then back, work; then evening browsed & read, studio wet hair triple eyebags. Here are snippets of the video (below). Thanks everyone! :
(Lucky color today, says the morning show astrologer: Olive green.) Here is the first part of the video. the continuation has been posted earlier in this blog (previous post) so the discussion is subject to, or continued in the earlier post (don’t want to have to repeat it here, pakibasa na lang uli, tnx.). About 400 megabytes compressed into 55 megabytes, very grainy, on 24 frames per second, with the resulting dark horizontal band on the screen from 0:29 to 1:32 which covered the beautiful face of Gretchen Malalad, apologies. But it gets better from 4:00 onwards, the faces could be seen. By the way, the other day, the entertainment portal http://www.spot.ph released the results of its poll or survey: Gretchen Malalad was voted top ten “hottest’” newswomen. Gretchen in this video narrated the back story of the story, or how they came upon the aftermath of the “encounter”.
the blog discussion on the ethical issues is as follows: When the police chief apologized for one of his men for accusing ABS-CBN reporters of having “delayed” the police in bringing the injured person to the hospital, it was in effect a retraction, and the full footage clearly showed that the police held the injured person in their vehicle and called the ABS-CBN reporters to film him and ask him questions; so, it was clear that it was not the reporters who caused the delay or any delay.
The anchor, Tony Velasquez, then asked the crucial question: Should the camera crew continue filming an injured person or should they ask the police to bring the person to the hospital? (should the reporter tell the police what to do, or should the journalist ask the police instead what they are doing, or should the camera crew themselves intervene by bringing the injured person to the hospital?)
i said something like journalists on the field are in the best position to decide ethical questions like that, or when they should cease being journalists and “intervene” in the unfolding of events by, well, being human.
On the other hand, international media organizations such as CNN and BBC do not show images of dead people or of dying persons. In the Philippines, the codes of ethics of media organizations frown upon or proscribe showing the face of a dead person, or a zoomed-in image of the face of a dead person; media organizations also frown upon the showing of too much blood (if they have to, it is either pixelized or shown as a line shot or in black and white); mangled body parts are also not shown. Usually, local media organizations just show the feet or the hands of the dead person, or a long shot of the body. However, this situation is more complicated because the person was alive when in custody, police told the reporters they could film him, the camerastaff and reporter did not know, at first, the extent of the injuries, and to make matters even more complicated, he did not die of those injuries, the medical report stated that he died of asphyxiation, and he was in custody of the police when he died.
Gretchen Malalad also pointed out that they trusted the police to hold only a person who didn’t have to be rushed to the hospital right away. This video is continued in the earlier post.
Apologies again for the quality of the upload. Thanks for viewing!
