'Media should strengthen role as human rights advocates'

'Media should strengthen role as human rights advocates'
By MA. ALETA O. NIEVAabs-cbnNEWS.com
Families of victims of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings on countless times have thanked the media for keeping their quest for justice alive by continuously reporting on the hundreds of cases of human rights violations in the country.
"In any society not just the Philippine society, our role is to be a monitor and guarantor of society to make sure the government doesn’t overstretch its attacks on the people," said Alan Davis, Director of Special Projects of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) and Project Director of the Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project during a discussion on Media Coverage on Human Rights in ABS-CBN News Channel's Media in Focus Thursday night.
Davis believes that journalists should advocate human rights and not just write stories about what violations are being done.
"I think there is no such thing as real objectivity everything is subject. Every time a journalist makes a decision they make a subconscious decision on how to frame a story. They are going to cover this story and not that story or use that quote or not that quote or use that picture or not that picture. Everything is subconsciously subjected," said Davis.
Davis explained that every story is related to human rights and should not be treated as just being a leftist or a rightist issue.
"The government has human rights concerns and responsibilities. It’s not always right for people to suggest, especially in the Philippines, that human rights is a leftist thing," he said.
Valid criticsm
For her part, Rowena Paraan, the secretary general of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) agreed that there is no real objectivity "because the journalists decide whether to take up for example, the story of Karen Empeño or to take up another case."
Paraan said the media only took the issue of human rights violation seriously around 2004-2005 after the Amnesty International came up with a report and the visit of United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston to the Philippines.
Human rights group Karapatan has recorded more than 900 cases of extrajudicial killings from 2001 up to the present.
"I think there is a valid criticism on some human rights organizations that media during the early years of the Arroyo government was not doing its job," Paraan said.
Despite this, Paraan believes that there were improvements in terms of media engaging in more human rights stories.
"I think so. When Philip Alston came to the Philippines it was a big media thing. Journalists were all covering the visits of Alston and after that, journalists monitored some of the cases. We should not limit the issue of human rights to extrajudicial killings, it’s a broad, broad issue," she said.
Although Davis considers that journalists are doing a good job in reporting human rights issues in the print and broadcast media, he still thinks that there is a problem in the society of the beat system.
He said that most local journalists whom they have talked to during their seminars in the regions are very much interested in writing stories about human rights but the difference in interests makes them ask "where does human rights fit" and "it might not get published in the newspapers" even if every story should be a human rights story.
‘Not telling story is the bigger problem’
When asked if telling more human rights stories desensitize the public to the issue of human rights, Paraan said that it would depend on how the journalist tells the story.
"There's a way of telling a story that you won’t be that. But not telling the story, that's a bigger problem," she said.
Most families of victims of human rights violations turn to media for help in the hope of finding a missing relative or finally obtaining the justice they have struggled for so long.
"In fact if you go to the province, people look at broadcasters, especially broadcasters, they trust them more than they trust the local government. They go to the reporters, the broadcasters if they have problems with hospital bills, if they need money to bury their relatives, they go to them if they have problems in the schools," Paraan said.
Help from media
During an earlier segment of Media in Focus, Mrs. Erlinda Cadapan explained that it is the media who is helping her in her search for justice.
"Nakakatulong positively," Mrs. Cadapan said adding that journalists who cover the disappearances of her daughter Sherlyn and fellow University of the Philippines student Karen Empeño, delivered the actual details given to them.
For Davis, journalists should also investigate cases saying "I think that they should and they do and they have done in the past. I think it embarrasses the police, the AFP and government bodies sufficiently for them to do their jobs. I think it’s the role of the media to be an advocate of society-that's people who don’t have a voice, that’s people in power. Media has to be a non political force but a force to change and has to keep people on track and specially the election time."
Paraan said that media is able to stay neutral when faced with the cases of human rights violations.
"I think if you ask human rights workers they would say I think we need to do more. Its not because were doing too much of it, leaning to the side of the victims, but they think we are doing not that much and that we need to do more precisely why we have this project," she replied.
Can be violators too
But while media is being trusted by majority of the public, journalists oftentimes commit human rights violations too like when presenting a suspect who is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.
Paraan added that the perception that human rights is a leftist issue prevalent among journalists.
"The tendency is to treat a case of extrajudicial killing as a leftist issue so when other human rights issues comes up it is also treated as a leftist issue because the one who complains for example about low wages, lack of housing are usually members of militant groups," she said.
Furthermore, she said that when there are complaints, they are treated as leftist issue, "that’s why we need to educate journalists."