As a journalist, I have always held the view that the media's greatest responsibility is to be the public's watchdog. We are not just event chroniclers or even storytellers. We are called to uphold truth and hold those in authority accountable. This is never an easy task to fulfill. It requires vigilance, courage, and an ardent sense of duty to the people we serve. I have come to understand over the years that our credibility is our richest currency. Once we lose that, we lose the trust to speak truth to power. Journalism is not a well-paying job, more so in this age of social media, when we are challenged by ordinary citizens who have also assumed roles of creating content and news-like stories. It is a profession based on dedication and love to serve the public, even when the rewards are not tangible and the risks are real.
That is why it is worth our time as journalists to examine the choices made by the people we once had high respect for when they accepted the invitation to feature the extravagant life of the Discaya clan. The segments featured luxury vehicles, haute couture closets, and mansions. The timing when they aired the interviews was obviously part of their election campaign. While Sarah Discaya lost her bid against Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto, the interviews eventually led to accusations of ghost flood control projects not only implicating the Discaya Family, but the web of a seemingly mafia-like operations of contractors conniving with government officials.
I tried thinking about the original intention of these interviews, and I couldn't help but wonder at the editorial discretion that produced those stories. Were they intended to educate, or did they unwittingly whitewash a story that cried out for scrutiny?
As professionals, we have an ethical code that reminds us to do no harm, act independently, and be accountable. By not putting the Discaya family's wealth into context as part of the larger problem of suspected corruption, Babao and Sanchez might have made a mistake. Not to point fingers, but to analyze how even veteran reporters can go wrong when the boundaries between access and accountability are blurred. We must always question ourselves: who gains from the narratives we create, and at what expense?
But ironically, their looks might have still been working for the truth. Public reaction was immediate and passionate. Social media, advocacy groups, and even city officials started putting two and two together. The disparity between the family's extravagance and the suspected abuse of public funds became too glaring to overlook. In a sense, the interviews gave rise to the exact kind of public outrage that investigative reporting seeks to provoke. Occasionally, the truth manages to seep in through cracks we did not anticipate in the story. Even unintentionally from the start, the truth did really come out to haunt all those accountable.
This experience has reminded me of why journalists need to consistently reset their moral compass. Our job is not only to report facts or simply tell stories that we think will inspire people to work harder, banking on a rags-to-riches plot twist. It's to contextualize them in such a manner that they enable the public to ask for better. I hope this is a wake-up call to all of us in the media. We must remain vigilant, not only in what we report but how we report it. Because in the end, our loyalty must always lie with the truth and with the people who rely on us to tell it.