LOOKING BEYOND THE MEDIA INDUSTRY

The first person I interviewed was Mr. Siegred F. Agustin, he’s a camera man from GMA network. He shoots different shows of GMA including Tunay na Buhay, Rescue and the like. As camera man, you must be very careful on whatever you shoot and consider all the precautions of your subject, especially he shoots shows which have sensitive topics. For instance, for Tunay na Buhay, it tackles about different stories of life, there are a lot of stories with sensitivity and even your subject agrees that you can show him/her in public, it’s also your responsibility to hide them, either blur their faces or make a shot that the subject will not be identified, because it’s in the code of ethics. You need to have your own thinking about cases like that. Most of the time, he experiences this kind of situation when he shoots documentary shows. He said that the most sensitive to shoot are the children, you need to have consent from DOLE or the permission of the guardians.

            I also interviewed one of the program researchers of Kapuso mo, Jessica Soho and Day off,  Mr. Mike Cristobal, he’s also working for other shows of GMA in some of the programs’ epsisodes and was also the segment producer of Hanep Buhay, but the show already ended. According to him, we have limitations in media and you have to consider that in every story you do, especially when it comes to the privacy and protection of a particular person. In GMA, they have handbook, it includes the regulations of the network, so they have a guide in making decisions about ethical issues. It still depends on the person, you just need to do what are the right things, you do not literally follow the rules written on the handbook but have your own thinking and be open-minded about different cases you encounter. I also discovered that the staff from GMA are not allowed to receive anything from any person they interview, feature and the like, it’s part of their ethical responsibilities, so as not to be bias or anything. But then, it still depends on the person, all the ethical issues that the media practitioners experience depend on the person on how to decide or cope up with the situation, but for him he never did anything unethical when it comes to his work because he considers all the do’s and don’ts. If you think people will not be interested with your story because of some things that you need to hide, make other ways to fulfill the story you want to achieve, strategize so that you can still gain the interest of the people, like what he said “bumawi ka sa ibang elemento”. That is in the case of the public affairs shows, but in news, this is where you encounter most of the problems about ethical issues, he said it’s still the same with news, but in news it’s more complicated. His main point is, publish what you think the public has the right to know, but protect and respect also the privacy of your subject. Look at the both sides and that’s when you make a move of what to publish. It really depends on the journalist on how to treat a specific story, but we have to always remember that we are (media practitioners) here to serve the public. That’s one of the objectives of being a media practitioner, so we must focus on our objectives.