SENSITIVITIES

The airing of the video showing blurred images of the child cyber pornography victims by a giant TV network dismayed officials and those working on the case against the couple who perpetrated the crime and rightly so.  An official said the video was supposed to be used as evidence by the prosecutors against the couple who exploited their children for profit and copies of it were only provided to three agencies. As it is, the national broadcast media again dropped the ball on a particularly sensitive issue but it’s not the most infamous violation they committed. This is not meant to restrict media coverage—the last thing we want is self-censorship with too many lobby groups and politicians dictating on how media should do their work for their own agenda—but to develop sensitivities to public sentiments, culture and tastes.

DON'T LET FOI BILL DIE

“The President says he supports the bill in principle, but that he has “specific questions and concerns” that he wants to be settled, before he endorses it as his priority legislation. His concerns, the President says, include his fears that FOI could unlock documents that might expose people to kidnappers, cause government losses in right-of-way cases because of property price speculations, and many other unwanted results.

“Yet over the last 14 months in office, he has failed to answer and settle these concerns, and for as long a period, the FOI bill has languished in limbo.

HOLDING TABLOIDS ACCOUNTABLE

These tabloids can be easily linked to the commodification of the human body in salacious photos and erotic literature. Tabloid owners may argue that immodesty, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. But the harm done by pornography is not a question of individual taste, but social impact.These papers with colorum writers, editors and publishers should be the target of crackdown on indecency. Local officials should rely on the capacity of local dailies to regulate themselves for decency's sake.