NEWSFLASH

JOLO HOSTAGING SPAWNS ABS-CBN PLAINT VS. FREELANCER

Quezon City, May 7, 2000 Hundreds of local and foreign journalists are now criss-crossing the Mindanao land and sea routes, chasing stories, kidnappers, bombers and news sources. The competition is intense and the pressure is on to acquire the best and, if possible, the only coverage of the most important events.

Just how serious the competition in the news business is in getting that elusive ‘exclusive’ was brought home by an incident that Ricky Lo of the Philippine Star wrote about today.

ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation denounced the unethical journalistic practice of freelance journalist Arlyn dela Cruz in the coverage of the foreign hostages in captivity in Sulu last April 29, 2000.

ABS-CBN News & Current Affairs sent Dela Cruz to Sulu after she offered her services to the company as a Guest Correspondent. Having already done stories on the Abu Sayyaf, Dela Cruz was apparently the only journalist invited by the group. She assured the news organization that she can get footage of the hostages and do a story on the hostage crisis. ABS-CBN provided Dela Cruz with plane tickets, a camera, a cameraman and an assistant, as well as access to its satellite fly-away system in Jolo and the network's satellite station in Zamboanga City.

However, unknown to ABS-CBN the company turned out to be an unfortunate victim of an unethical journalistic practice as Dela Cruz also entered into another agreement with the foreign wire service Reuters. After getting the video footage, the ABS-CBN crew were told to hand over the tapes to a Reuters team. The ABS-CBN News group had to wait for Reuters representatives to first preview the tapes and feed from ABS-CBN's Zamboanga facilities before they could even see the footage.

According to Angelo Castro Jr., SVP for ABS-CBN News & Current Affairs, the company "strongly believe that it is the rightful owner of Dela Cruzes' video material of the hostages and their captors, which was taken with our camera." Castro also condemned Dela Cruzes' actions and sent a letter of protest to Reuters saying that the network "protests this breach of professional ethics."