Tag: conflict reporting

Armed conflict, international law, News, The News Media

Headline-writing & the Sabah conflict

     Here’s the Agence France Presse story on yesterday’s carpet bombing of Tanduo, Sabah by the Malaysian military, reprinted below. See how the Agence France Presse was very careful in not using any loaded words or derogatory labels. It took pains in writing out: “Filipinos loyal to the former Sultan of Sulu” instead of the shorter, more convenient but loaded and derogatory  “gunmen” , “intruders”, “terrorists”, etc. . These epithets connote crime, criminal suspects, etc.. They make the state-party Malaysia fall outside the pale of international humanitarian law that prohibits carpet bombings of civilian-populated areas.

      Throughout the story, Agence France Presse took pains in being accurate, journalistically correct and politically correct.

      See how the Inquirer and Interaksyon handled the storification of the news item. Inquirer and Interaksyon used  generic nouns while at the same time being accurate and correct about it.  The Inquirer simply referred to the Sulu “Royal Army” members as: Filipinos (see their headline: “Filipinos survive attack”) . It’s accurate, correct, objective. Interaksyon referred to them simply as : Pinoy (see their headline: “No dead Pinoy found 9 hours after Sabah assault”. Accurate, correct, objective. But look at Rappler’s headline of the exact Agence France Presse story (Agence France Presse precisely took pains in referring to the combatants as “Filipinos loyal to the sultan” throughout the article)…. Rappler headlined it as: “Pinoy gunmen survive Sabah raid”.  

      Gunmen.

    Headline-writing can be tricky. A tabloid headline writer  might have bannered:  “ ‘I’m alive!!’ – Sulu commander”.

     I know that you want your headlines to be short and crisp,  but not at the cost of sacrificing correctness, or of avoiding loaded words, especially in conflict-reporting.

     Here’s the Agence France Presse story, it also appears in my news site : for a comprehensive coverage of the Sabah conflict with 12 stories and 12 angles on the confrontation, pls click: 

12reports carpet-bombing Sabah March6, 13 What’s Trending marichulambino

   (i also have soft news on that site from Readers Digest, Vegetarian Society, Good Housekeeping, Yahoo Shine, New York Times, etc. — see for yourself!)

        “Manila, Philippines – Filipinos loyal to the former Sultan of Sulu survived a bombing raid and ground offensive launched by Malaysian security forces on Tuesday, the group’s spokesman said.

 

“More than 200 men loyal to the sultan who have been in Malaysia’s Sabah state for about 3 weeks moved outside the area that was attacked before the offensive operation began, the sultan’s spokesman, Abraham Idjirani, told AFP.

 

“ “They heard a lot of explosions and saw two bombs being dropped by Malaysian aircraft,” Idjirani said in Manila. “But this was happening away from where he and his men are.”

 

“Following the morning air raid, Malaysia’s national police chief said that “mopping up” operations had yet to find any dead militants, but expressed fears that at least some of them might have slipped away.

 

“Idjirani said he spoke with the leader of the armed men in Sabah by telephone at 3:00 pm (0700 GMT).

 

“ “They are fine,” Idjirani said.

 

“Jamalul Kiram III, a self-styled Filipino Muslim sultan, sent the men to Sabah in a bid to enforce the sultanate’s centuries-old ownership claim on the state.

 

“On Tuesday afternoon, Malaysian officials and the Malaysian media reported that their army defeated the Filipino gunmen. The Star newspaper of Malaysia said, quoting police sources: “The Sulu armed group was totally routed by [the] Malaysian security forces’ overwhelming firepower.” “

Armed conflict, The News Media

an entire chapter

francisluis-mora.jpg

 

Francis Luis Mora. Medieval Street Battle 1888. ACA Galleries, est. 1932. Right-clicked from www.artnet.com searched thru www.artcyclopedia.com

 

After this blog broke the story of the supposed curly-haired female reporter last Tuesday who according to the PNP had been documented in a CCTV camera allegedly giving a press card to “fugitive” Nicanor Faeldon – a blind item that had been passed around earlier and stored in the memory card of many reporters’ cellphones, not used and not storified because the source was anonymous – (only this blog used it because it’s a tabloid-blog ha-ha; no, even if the source could not be confirmed, the fact that the CIDG elements were leaking the blind item and sowing intrigue among members of the press to intimidate them was, in my opinion, a story by itself; and we also used it to illustrate the new rule on habeas data) the story took a life of its own. The Inquirer picked it up the next day, and today, a blown-up photo (video grab) of foreign correspondent Dana Batnag holding a pocket-size tape recorder apparently interviewing Nicanor Faeldon last Nov. 29 in a crowded corridor of the hotel, as Faeldon leaned towards her to hear her above the din of what seemed to be a throng moving forward.

The truth is, the DOJ, the PNP, the CIDG, and all 100,000 of the armed forces, do not know how Faeldon escaped.

That’s what happens when an unprofessional DOJ secretary (Raul Gonzales) leaks the story of a supposed CCTV tape showing a reporter supposedly helping Faeldon by giving him a press i.d., without actually having seen the tape himself. He just shoots his mouth off without looking at the evidence or reading or knowing the pertinent laws. We suffer the politicization of the bureaucracy because Gloria intended her executives to be her sycophants and minions to protect her seat and keep her in power without these fawning political appointees knowing what their job was. Come to think of it, it was he who broke this story with his blind item, blanket accusations, rumor-mongering.

(Yesterday, he somehow backpedaled in his interviews by tossing the issue to the PNP. Too late, reputations have been besmirched and rights to be secure and to privacy have been and are being violated.)

It’s not just sloth and cluelessness, there were continuous and persistent moves and an intent to threaten the members of the press.

The truth is, the DOJ, the PNP, the CIDG, the ISAFP, the AFP, do not know which door or which window or which ceiling or stairs or sunroof Faeldon took when he escaped. Ask them. For all we know, he could have walked away thru the front door much earlier.

The truth is, the DOJ, the PNP, the CIDG, the ISAFP, the AFP, do not know which alley or which street he traversed, to have so easily evaded the cordon of policemen that ringed the hotel. Ask them.

The fact is, the DOJ, the PNP, the CIDG, the ISAFP, the AFP, do not know which car he borrowed, who drove it, who secured him; they do not know for sure in what city, municipality, province, what hill, mountain, island, the escaped soldiers are. Ask them.

This country has had insurgencies for three hundred years and coup plotters and coup attempts and unauthorized troop movements now and then for more than twenty years; for decades; and there will always be conflict-reporting, locally, for a long time in this country; in some large media organizations, it is an entire beat, and in some schools it is an entire chapter of a course or courses; inciting to rebellion, inciting to sedition, inciting to war, the Espionage Act, unlawful publications and acts against state interest, as limits to freedom of expression, form an entire section in media law. But the fact is, the DOJ, the PNP, the CIDG, the ISAFP, the AFP, do not want any journalists around when any conflict-reporting has to be done. They don’t want any witnesses. To their incompetence. Or barbarity when those hors de combat (out of combat or disabled) but still moving come out in body bags.