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Sunday, September 11, 2005
Mercado: ‘Pocketbook muscle’ and journalists
By Juan L. Mercado
“RADIO block timers” remain a festering problem that shows little signs of early solution, the 2005 Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) study of journalists’ killings asserts.
“Seven of the last 10 slain commentators were block timers in the provinces,” says the CMFR study, “The Danger of Impunity.” And “35 percent were block timers.”
CMFR’s head count shows that 54 journalists were killed “in the line of duty” since 1986, authors Rachel Khan and Nathan Lee write. Broadcast journalists accounted for 21 of 25 victims since 2000.
So, what’s a “block timer”?
It’s a unique Philippine creation. Radio stations, in Europe or the US, don’t have them. Neither do Asean countries, like Thailand or Malaysia.
Yet, the species attracts hired killers. In fact, the CMFR report devotes one section to, “The Issue of Block Timers.”
Critics claim, like Frank Zappa, that they’re “people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.” Others ask: Are they journalists?
The dictionary logged in the word “journalist” in 1693. This meant “a writer or editor for a news medium.” Or, “a writer who aims at a mass audience.” Since then radio, then TV, came on stream. And broadcast journalists, many of them distinguished, enriched this craft.
“Block timers” are not staff members of stations from where they broadcast. Some of these freelancers flaunt oversized “press credentials.” Often, they’re self-issued bonafides.
CMFR found, in fact, that “17 or more than 80 percent of (the) murdered broadcasters didn’t have accreditation...from the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP).”
They didn’t “renew their license, did not pass the accreditation exam, and no records at all.” Dipolog’s Klein Cantoneros, for example, “block timed” for over a year sans KBP credentials, although station managers courted sanctions.
“Block timers” are walk-in customers. They buy a block of airtime at any of the 952 radio stations that the National Telecommunications Commission oversees with a shaky hand.
With no questions asked, they broadcast-–what? News and comment, they claim. Character assassination or praise, for a price, their critics counter.
Some commentators, in Oscar Wilde’s words, “give us the opinion of the uneducated that brings us in touch with the ignorance of the community”
Block-timers rarely indicate who picks up the tab for their programs. But those praised-–or shellacked-–give a fair idea of pays. Nor do stations require such notices. That’d resemble print media’s indicating what is “paid ad,” as distinct from editorial matter.
“Block timing is one of the primary fund-generators for provincial radio stations,” Melinda de Jesus of CMFR notes. “This proved to be the emerging problem for KBP,” as programs with little accountability proliferate. This country, after all, works by the revised version of the “Golden Rule”: “He who has the gold, rules.”
So does pocketbook muscle, shown in ability to purchase airtime, make one a journalist? Widespread doubts persist.
“Our membership lists remain porous,” observed Cebu Press Freedom Week pooled editorial. “We’ve still to flush out hao-shiaos who flush press cards or walk-in block time microphones.”
“Comment is free,” Manchester Guardian’s C.P. Scott once said. “But facts are sacred.” In an Inquirer interview, CMFR’s Khan revealed that their study found lack of such ethical sense and training. Some 25 percent finished high school while 13 percent “had no record of educational attainment.”
There’s little by way of training block-timers to objectivity, balance, fairness--and avoidance of conflict of interest, as journalism code of ethics provide. Most “block timers” operate in a moral wasteland where facts are few and comments have a price tag.
Some commentators were “hard-hitting without evidence or proper data-gathering,” CMFR notes. Electronic gunslinging resulted in power of the press abuse. “Power without responsibility has been the prerogative of the harlot through the ages,” the Irish statesman Stanley Baldwin once said.
Unjustified criticism, by reckless, even corrupt, commentators is no excuse for murder. But would “more prudent reports” have saved those trapped in “life-threatening scenarios,” CMFR’s Khan and Lee wonder aloud.
“Efforts at fair reporting might have deterred (any violent retaliation),” CMFR notes. “They can become easy targets if they are not affiliated with any institution…But not one of the victims…could be considered “trained” for their dangerous job.”
KBP has made efforts to instill professional standards through self-regulation. It’s Radio Code, for example, prohibits open-ended contracts for “block-timers.” The body runs training seminars and an accreditation system.
Clearly, broadcasting the name of those who fund block time programs will increase transparency. But implementation of even existing measures-–from certification that the “block timer” adheres to the KBP code to monthly reports--has been spotty. One slain block-timer stayed on the air for 14 months before assassins caught up. But no station license has ever been revoked.
And there are unresolved gray-area questions: Are block timers journalists? And if people who have, at best, a hazy claim to being journalists court murder, what are the implications for a craft so “essential for democracy at the edges”?
(juan_mercado@pacific.net.ph)
(September 11, 2005 issue)
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