Privacy and the right to know

In a US government-sponsored trip to America many years ago, I and 16 other participating journalists from as many countries in the world got the chance to visit and observe different newspapers in different regions of the United States. We visited a community paper, a mid-sized paper, a national newspaper. We visited a Black newspaper, a Hispanic newspaper, even a school paper.

In one of these visits -- to a mid-sized newspapers -- our guide asked us to take note of a giant framed reproduction of the newspaper's front page that was hung prominently in the lobby. That particular front page of the newspaper had two photos, one below the fold of a woman crying as she cradled the lifeless body of her young son, a drowning victim at youth summer camp.

We dutifully took note of the framed reproduction as requested. Later, at the briefing following our tour of the premises, we were asked if we remembered the giant frame we saw in the lobby. Yes, we did, we chorused. We each were then asked why the paper chose to display that particular front page prominently. As we were all editors, we each tried to outdo the other in extolling the magnificent choices of stories and photos and what a great layout the page had.

The person briefing us laughed. He told us the framed reproduction was displayed prominently as a reminder of the day in which a court ordered the paper to pay several millions of dollars in damages to the crying woman in the picture. The woman had sued the paper for intrusion to privacy. As it turned out, grief was a private moment and that, by publishing the photo of the grieving woman, the paper had intruded into her privacy.

I am recalling this episode because there is now a pending bill in our Congress, in the House of Representatives, that seeks to make it unlawful to trespass on private property in order to capture, for commercial purposes, any type of visual image, sound recording, or other physical impression of any individual or personal or family activity without any prior consent.

Any violation of a person's privacy under this bill opens the intruder to civil action in which relief and compensatory damages may be obtained. That no actual action for commercial gain ever transpired cannot constitute a defense in such civil action. The proposed law only exempts law enforcers while in the performance of their official duties.

The bill, HB4807, is authored by Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and ABAMIN partylist Rep. Maximo Rodriguez Jr. It is co-authored by Cebu Rep. Gwen Garcia, Bulacan Rep. Linabelle Ruth Villarica, Pangasinan Rep. Leopoldo Bataoil, and BUHAY partylist Rep. Jose Atienza Jr. The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines is opposing the measure, fearing it may violate guarantees on freedom of expression and press freedom.

Freedom of expression and press freedom are beautiful concepts that can turn ugly with abuse and self-righteousness. For there is no absolute freedom, not even for the mighty press. And not even in America, the very bastion of freedom and democracy, as seen by the example I have mentioned at the beginning of this article. The right of the press to pursue its freedom of expression is not and cannot be superior to a person's right to his own civil liberties.

I think the bill is not intended to curtail press freedom as feared by the NUJP. I think the real target of the bill are the paparazzi-type intrusions that often give legitimate media the bum rap. I think the press has never been in any real danger except from its own self -- the excesses it has allowed in the guise of legitimacy and the self-righteousness it has arrogated for its own sake.

I have nothing but contempt for journalists who think the world owes them a living simply because they happen to have a press card strung around their necks. I have seen truly professional journalists get pushed and shoved or get whacked in the head or have their equipment smashed and still not whine and whimper about press freedom being dead even as they live.

I used to string for Reuters for nearly 20 years and in the back of my press card all it says is I am working on behalf of that great professional organization and any courtesy that may be extended to me in the exercise of my duties as such will be highly appreciated. Nowhere did it say there, nor should it say in any similar card, that it can part the Red Sea.

Getting to a story is never easy. Many great journalists sacrificed their own personal freedoms, even gave up their lives in the pursuit of a story. But never in the great personal sagas they left behind to inspire the world did the relentlessness with which they pursue stories suffice to justify violating the rights and freedoms of others to be secure in their own persons.

The search for truth, upon which freedom of the press and the right to free expression are anchored, is not a tool meant to manufacture a separate reality. There is only one truth. And that truth is, if you cannot find it the right way, you will not find it the wrong way either. In which case, you probably are just not trying hard enough and that the fault is no one else's but your own.

The consensual nature of the relationship between a journalist and his news source is the very foundation on which is built credibility, both of the journalist and the story he writes. If HB4807 is intended to protect the civil liberties of individuals against certain unethical media practices, what is there for legitimate media to fear. Anything that weeds out the unethical and the unjust can only strengthen what is left.

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