Thursday, September 11, 2008 Seares: Guilty! And they smile? By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
ON Page 1 in yesterday's Sun.Star, atop the banner headline, two faces were grinning broadly: those of congressmen Rodolfo Valencia and Alfonso Umali Jr.
Surely, not because the Sandiganbayan found them guilty of corruption.
Valencia and Umali, with three others, as provincial officials of Oriental Mindoro, 15 years ago granted a P2.5 million loan to a ferryboat owner. The jail sentence: six years and one month to 10 years. Plus perpetual ban from holding public office.
That's definitely nothing to smile about. But they were smiling in the paper, as if they had just won reelection or their pork barrel had just been tripled.
Isn't using happy photos with sad news improper, even gross?
A local lawmaker, Cebu City Councilor Augustus Pe Jr. once asked that to a group of journalists. Junpe said it mocks the ill-fated persons and misleads the reader to think they find their conviction hilarious.
Undoubtedly not to be preferred. More fitting would be photos of the congressmen with downcast eyes, looking weepy and penitent.
Photos that 'jibe'
Page editors usually scour the paper's files for photos that "jibe" with the story's tone.
The two mug shots, sent with the story by Sun.Star News Exchange (Sunnex), were probably lifted from the House web site or yearbook.
There's no mocking. And what reader will think the photos were taken at the time of sentencing?
Still, I agree with Junpe. A larger and wider photo file on public officials will help.
We'll have a photographer shoot the councilor in various moods. Whatever news, good or bad, about Junpe, an "appropriate" photo will be ready.
