‘Pare, mahal kita’

Senator Bong Revilla broke a fistful of rules, and perhaps a law or two, when he directly intervened in today’s hostage crisis. Radio and TV anchor Ted Failon pointed out one of them: Revilla, he said, caused a “delay” in the negotiations simply by entering the picture. But that did not stop Failon from asking Revilla to keep his cellphone on, while the senator “negotiated” with the main hostage-taker, Jun Ducat. As a result, the listening and viewing public managed to hear Revilla’s amateurish intervention (”Pare, mahal kita”) and then Ducat’s obviously well-rehearsed rant.

That, in the proverbial nutshell, was the dilemma that faced journalists, especially those in radio and TV, today. To follow the ground rules, or to bend them for the benefit of an exclusive or a scoop.

As a veteran police officer later pointed out on cable TV, the negotiations shouldn’t have been broadcast at all (and, contrary to what some radio commentators said, Ducat shouldn’t have been given the airtime he asked for).

In a situation like today’s, print journalists enjoy what we can call second-mover advantage. Some mistakes (such as Julius Babao naming the first child to be released) are made by broadcast journalists because of the difficult, on-the-spot nature of their work; these, if the editors in the newsroom pay attention, can prove to be exemplary mistakes. They can be avoided.

Other mistakes are more in the nature of shortcomings; when Ricky Carandang or Marieton Pacheco wonder what will happen when the gas runs out and the bus’s airconditioning system bogs down, their reporters on the ground should have tried to find out. (The Inquirer’s Volt Contreras found out, from the bus driver, that a full tank of gas would allow the bus to idle for three days.)

All this is to say that, in any crisis, a print newsroom’s TV sets are tuned in to the TV coverage too. Of course, the assignment editors field even more calls from reporters and correspondents (ditto with the chief lensman and his photographers). Even more than usual, the shaping of the developing story is a creature of both choice and circumstance.

Because we have an earlier deadline in Inquirer Compact, it became clear quickly that we would have to take a stab at the story even before all the main facts were in, maybe even before the crisis would end. Abel, our executive editor, made the fundamental choice of focusing on the hostages (rather than, say, the hostage-taker) — in part because we both felt it was the most powerful, the most moving part of the unfolding story, and in part because he knew that this approach would give us maximum elbow room. Of the many photos to choose from for the front page, he chose a simple, dramatic close-up of one of the hostages, peering out of the bus.

We were wrapping up work on the news pages when Ducat, with the high profile help of Chavit Singson (not coincidentally, a candidate for the Senate), released the hostages. There were additional photos to choose from, but Abel decided (rightly so, in my opinion) to go with the original choice. (I will upload the front page tomorrow, when I get back to the newsroom.)

Other photos, including one of Ducat in one of his previous escapades, went into the two pages we had reserved for the story.

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