There has been intense debate within and outside journalists\u2019 circles on how a reporter should frame a question posed to a subject during a news conference.<\/p>\n
Before Zoom and social media, the public rarely saw an ordinary news conference. There have since been countless unforgivable errors and bloopers never before seen in public.<\/p>\n
Things are different now. Newsmakers and journalists are both under public scrutiny. The public has become ruthless critics and unforgiving witnesses.<\/p>\n
People at the center of a controversy are easily crucified, sometimes wrongly and unnecessarily. But reporters share the same predicament in some occasions.<\/p>\n
GMA News reporter Tina Panganiban Perez became the latest victim of this vicious \u201cone controversial question asked\u201d debacle.<\/p>\n
She could have prayed for the earth to swallow her after many people attacked her for asking Patricia Non directly if she had links with the Maoist-led rebels.<\/p>\n
Though there were people who defended her, the hurt could be unbearable if the criticisms came from fellow journalists and journalism educators.<\/p>\n
The question was legitimate. Non called for the news conference a day after the Quezon City police red-tagged her for organizing the country\u2019s first community pantry on Maginhawa Street.<\/p>\n
Many people who watched the news conference felt offended by the question. Maybe it was because of how the question was asked and how it was delivered. Or there could have been a better way to frame the question.<\/p>\n
Was it Tina\u2019s fault? Probably she has to take responsibility for not properly framing a question, as a journalist is taught in school and in practice. As a rule, open-ended questions are better than questions that can be answered by a simple yes or a no.<\/p>\n
But still, that question needed to be asked.<\/p>\n
Reporters who have been in the beats for decades often commit the same mistakes. Sometimes, reporters become callous and insensitive in asking a grieving mother or wife if a man who was shot dead by undercover police officers minutes ago was a drug addict.<\/p>\n
But most reporters are timid when it comes to challenging government officials on statements that are obviously false and mere propaganda.<\/p>\n
Journalists are supposed to ask hard questions to people in power and to ordinary people on the street to ferret out the truth.<\/p>\n
They should not give government officials, big business and other personalities a free pass to malign other people or to deceive the public with false information.<\/p>\n
Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade must be made to account if he goes swinging against people he accuses of having links to the Communists, when his own commander in chief had admitted in public his long-time friendship with rebels when he was mayor of Davao City for 22 years.<\/p>\n
If his statements were not challenged in a television show, he would gladly spread his misinformation on social media, misleading a lot of people.<\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_code admin_label=”Adsence Code” _builder_version=”4.2.1″ hover_enabled=”0″]