Iloilo media, PRO6 sign crisis coverage protocol
Media entities Iloilo city and province signed on Monday a protocol that stipulates the ground rules they will observe during future coverage of a hostage situation and similar crisis.
Chief Supt. Samuel Pagdilao Jr., police regional director, said the signing of such protocol was the first in Western Visayas and in the country.
The protocol was signed by publishers of local newspapers and radio/television station managers during rites held at the Police Regional Office 6 headquarters in Camp Delgado, Iloilo City.
When crisis situation arises in Iloilo, the protocol stipulates that the media who gets the information ahead of the police must see to it that they immediately inform the police authorities and refrain from making moves that may aggravate the situation.
It was also agreed upon that before releasing information, media should seriously weigh the benefits to the public as against the potential harm the information may cause. Interviews with terrorists and hostage takers should be avoided.
The local media also agreed that police operational plans such as assault plan and positions of the quick response units should not be reported live during the conduct of operations and that they should take more efforts to explain to the public why certain information is being withheld by authorities.
Pagdilao said the formulation of the protocol on the role of the media during coverage of hostage crisis was conceived following the call from both media and law enforcement sectors to come up with a set of rules that will define the proper conduct of coverage of media of crisis situation.
This would be done in a way that the media’s work will not impede in police operations and in negotiation with hostage perpetrators, and to ensure their own safety.
The protocol, a joint effort of the PRO6 and members of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, was firstly suggested and agreed upon by the media and the Philippine National Police during the 1st PNP-Media Relations Policy Seminar last August 20, but was urgently formulated following the tragic result of the police operations in the Quirino Grandstand hostage crisis in August 23.
Pagdilao said the protocol was finally adopted when publishers of local newspapers and managers of local radio/TV stations signed it to attest their commitment to observe the rules stipulated in it.
The protocol was not in any way intended to curtail the freedom of the press, he said.
Among the signatories are publishers and representatives of News Express, Panay News, Daily Guardian, The Daily Headlines, and The News Today and station managers of DYFM-Bombo Radyo Philippines, DYLL-Radyo ng Bayan, DYOK Aksyon Radyo, DYRI-Radio Mindanao Network, DYSI-Super Radyo, ABS-CBN and GMA Network.*
