Reporters Without Borders (RWB)—an international non-governmental organization that promotes and defends freedom of the press—released its 2018 World Press Freedom Index. The group reports that the Index “reflects growing animosity toward journalists. Hostility toward the media, openly encouraged by political leaders, and the efforts of authoritarian regimes to export their vision of journalism pose a threat to democracies.”
As if on cue, and to validate that conclusion, the House of Representatives Press and Public Affairs Bureau (PPAB) released its “institutional codified rules for media coverage.”
The House media office stated that there was “a need to give more teeth to the House’s efforts of ensuring a systematic and orderly media coverage that will be beneficial to both the House and the media, and ultimately to the citizenry.” Further, the PPAB said the press card of a House-accredited reporter may be revoked “if the bearer besmirches the reputation of the House of Representatives, its officials or members.”
The index from RWB does not carry complete credibility with us as it is a survey of “the degree of freedom available to journalists in 180 countries determined by pooling the responses of experts to a questionnaire devised by RWB.” Also taken into account is quantitative data like journalist killings and imprisonment.
But “the questionnaire is targeted at the media professionals, lawyers and sociologists.” In other words, a large portion of the results is based on the opinions of journalists themselves.
The threat and actual physical harm to journalists is a clear and present danger for which there is absolutely no excuse, and governments—including here in the Philippines—are in effect accomplices to those crimes. However, much of the freedom that RWB discusses concerns concentration of media ownership in a few hands, protection of sources and access by foreign journalists to a particular nation.
Japan scores behind such nations as El Salvador—“The media are among the victims of the widespread violence in El Salvador, one of the world’s most dangerous countries.” Japan scores badly (lowest of the G-7 countries) because “the system of “kisha clubs” (reporters’ clubs) continues to discriminate against freelancers and foreign reporters. Journalists find it hard put to fully play their role as democracy’s watchdog because of the influence of tradition and business interests.”
There is an elephant in the room—in fact two elephants—in this discussion. The first is that RWB and the industry itself refuses to address the issue that the press and media is not trusted by the public as it used to be. That creates the other elephant that there is low public support for the press and media on “press freedom.”
Global “public trust in traditional media has fallen to an all-time low” according to Richard Edelman, chief executive of the world’s largest public relations consultancy, which publishes the annual Edelman Trust Barometer. Trust in media decreased from 51 percent to 43 percent, an all-time low, with the sharpest falls in Ireland, Australia, Canada and Colombia, according to the 2016 results.
Here are two headlines about the same news story. From Agence France-Presse (third largest news agency in the world): “Philippines to Deport Australian Nun who angered Duterte.” From The Jakarta Post newspaper: “Philipines Expels Australian Nun for Political Activities.” Are both “true?” Maybe, but they are not equally unbiased.
Prominent US television personality Mika Brezinzski speaking of President Donald J. Trump spinning government data said: “He [Trump] could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job.” That is part of the freedom of the press.