News For Sale

The Corruption of the Philippine Media

This essay is based on the monograph entitled News for Sale: The Corruption of the Philippine Media by Chay Florentino-Hofileña. The book shows that the corruption of the Philippine media is pervasive, creative, sophisticated, institutionalized and systematic – thus making it difficult to detect and problematical to straighten out. The findings revealed in the book are shocking, but it ends with some concrete recommendations as to what initiatives need to be done to confront this pervasive problem.

Modus Operandi
Media corruption is at its worst the journalist selling oneself, or selling his/her story for money. How are the media bought? The method employed by different journalists and other media practitioners are so creative, methodical and sophisticated that it seems almost like the operation of an organized criminal syndicate. Their modus operandi include the following:

Advertising disguised as news. Media owners themselves offer package deals to political candidates during the campaign period to bring in income from advertising disguised as news. In 1987, the political ad ban through Republic Act 6646 was enacted in the Philippines “to level the playing field among candidates and to help control campaign spending”. Openly defying the political ad ban, radio stations, newspaper outfits and television channels offered its media services to candidates for a fee during the election campaign period. For example, the Manila Broadcasting Company offered that in exchange for PHP 20 million a candidate “would be guaranteed very favorable news coverage anytime and anywhere for the duration of the campaign”. Other offers included regular live interviews, accommodation of all press releases, news blackout for the opposing candidates, TV plugs – everything to ensure maximum media exposure camouflaged as regular newscast.

Paid publicity in opinion pieces. To ensure media visibility and favorable coverage, some businessmen and politicians pay on a regular basis some writers, editors, and broadcasters. This will also ensure that media practitioners will write nothing negative about them. The media practitioners also suppress a bad story about their clients. They go as far as to attack or destroy their clients’ opponents. Usually businessmen and politicians send money (which sometimes is as high as PHP 100,000 for a one-time deal) to writers and editors along with pictures and the damaging story against their opponents.

Working as ghostwriter or as public relations person for businessmen and politicians. Some opinion writers work as ghostwriters for politicians. Some of them perform the tasks of a public relations person through their media outlets. “Trading in positive write-ups, they have boldly demanded free trips and pocket money and unscrupulously accepted monthly remuneration.” One columnist even received PHP 50,000 a month for regularly writing positively to protect the image of a politician in his column.

How Payments Are Made
The Philippine media are seduced at all levels with big sums of money by people who want to protect their personal interests and to advance their economic and political ambitions. An assortment of procedures are utilized to deliver payments to the corrupt media practitioners. Needless to say, care is done to keep all transactions secret and undocumented. Payments are made through the following methods:

Outright cash. The price of media practitioners depends on their status in the media community. Newspaper writers and editors are paid around PHP 5,000 to PHP 50,000 per article or column or feature story. Radio commentators have a price range higher than their newspaper counterparts while those who work in broadcast TV have the highest price tag. Cash payments include daily allowances, commissions, pocket money for trips abroad and monthly retainers.

Through discreet payments. Such as payments through automated teller machines (ATM). Checks are seldom used because they can be traced. To avoid any trail, payments to crooked journalists and other media practitioners were deposited directly to their ATM accounts. “Ever careful about being traced, some of the journalists gave bank accounts that bore the names of their wives or children.”

Non-monetary inducements. These include gifts, dole-outs, cars, houses, free trips abroad, stocks and bonds, food and drinks, blowouts, domestic appliances such as TV and electric fans, jewelry, and other sweeteners.

Others. Some reporters are “treated to jaunts to popular nightclubs” and there were occasions when “female prostitutes were sent (by congressmen) to their respective hotel rooms for ‘entertainment’”.

Why Journalists Accept Payments
The most graphic images of corruption in the media are bundles of bills and gifts the journalists receive. But it looks so absurd how such a free media can be so corrupt. And it seems incomprehensible that a journalist would stain his reputation with money. Why would journalists accept payments? The book discloses that there are two main reasons why, and they are the following:

Low pay. Journalism in the Philippines is not a high-paying job. Journalists themselves say that their job cannot really support a family. Consider that a journalist today normally earns PHP 280 (less than 5 euros) a day. That is why low pay coupled with poverty is often cited as the reasons why journalists tend to be corrupt. They easily fall prey to the attractive offers of politicians to earn quick and easy money. “When asked why they were in the pay of some candidates, most of these journalists said that they merely wanted to earn extra cash for a host of pressing needs that a journalist’s pay could not ordinarily meet.”

Greed. However there are some who point the finger not only to financially struggling journalists but also to wealthy owners of media outfits. Their lust for profit drives them to allow their publications, stations and networks to be used for the vested interests of businessmen and politicians. “Poverty, however, is no justification for corruption, for even wealth has proven to be no strong deterrent to it. Highly paid columnists, reporters and editors then – as now – were not necessarily less corrupt.” In short it is pure greed that impels even highly-paid senior journalists to accept payments from businessmen and politicians “so they can indulge certain acquired tastes and a fondness for high living”.

Is There Hope for Reform?
The say that in the Philippines a journalist would be rich only if (1) he/she was born rich; (2) he/she marries rich, or (3) he/she is corrupt. It may sound funny but it is true. Poverty is a huge social problem in the problem in the Philippine but it is not a valid reason to be corrupt. In fact there is no valid reason whatsoever to be corrupt.

The corruption of journalism in the Philippines has both individual and structural roots. From the struggling neophyte news reporter to the well-paid professional TV newscaster – almost everyone in Philippine media is involved in corruption somehow. Is there hope for change? Although such a systematic problem does not have a quick and easy solution, hope will glimmer only if everyone – that means the field reporters, writers, editors, columnists, photographers, artists, radio commentators, TV crew, publishers, owners of media outfits, government officials and the general public – is convinced that efforts to bring about reform must be done. Media practitioners, the government and the general public have a shared responsibility to produce and maintain good journalism.

Journalism “is a facilitator of the democratic process, and as such, is responsible for the quality of information and opinion it disseminates. If dominated by vested interests, journalism ceases to fulfill its responsibilities and degenerates into a mere industry controlled by the powerful.” As such, every initiative to reform must include sincere self-regulation by journalists themselves. They can begin doing this by reviewing the journalistic codes of professional and ethical conduct and by applying them into their daily work. The initiative to reform must also include the government’s strong enforcements of laws against erring and corrupt journalists. Another key to meaningful change is of the general public who must give feedbacks and demand fidelity to the highest ethical standards. Only when these forces – journalists, government, and the public – bring their act together will there come a time when news will no longer be for sale.