Media Summit New York Takes ‘Right To Reply’ Bill

HOUSTON, Texas — A group of Filipino journalists is planning to bring up the controversial issue on the "Right to Reply" bill now pending in the Philippine Congress during the session discussion of the 2009 Media Summit New York in McGraw-Hill Building, New York City on March 18-19.
"We need the input of our counterparts from other countries on the issue so we can solidify our opposition on the controversial bill which is now enjoying widespread support in both the Lower and Upper Houses," Alex P. Vidal, associate editor of Philippine News Service (PNS), told Toronto-based Philippine Press Club of Ontario (PPCO) president Tenny F. Soriano in a letter dated March 3, 2009.

The controversial bill, authored in the Lower House by Bacolod Rep. Monico Puentevella and in the Upper House by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel, has been called as "an abridgement of our freedom and something not open to negotiation" by Vergel Santos, a journalist since martial law and now chair of the Editorial Board of the daily broadsheet Business World and trustee of the media monitoring group Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.

‘SCRAPPED TOTALLY’

"We don’t want the bill, we want it totally scraped," added Nonoy Espina, vice-chairperson of the National Union of Journalist of the Philippines (NUJP) which spearheads a signature drive against the bill nationwide.

Vidal, Soriano, and several US-based journalists from New York, New Jersey, Chicago, and Los Angeles vowed to actively participate in the forum discussion on March 18 in the Session A with a title: "The Changing Face of News: The Power, The Influence and the Challenge of the Technologies" to be moderated by The Associated Press senior managing editor Michael Oreskes and Business Week columnist Jon Fine.

The session’s rationale contends that "every morning, the national conversation is started and disseminated by the editorial voices at the major news organizations across the globe."

The tradition of great print and broadcast journalism reportedly remains at the core of our democracy – in fact – it could be argued that with the rise of "new media" distribution, more individuals have access to news than ever before. Nevertheless, with the growing power of broadband, mobile, IPTV, social networks, blogs and other non-traditional news sourcing, the role, the path of the future and the general understanding of how to structure a national news gathering and distribution organization is the ongoing question for our industry.

The power and voice of news continues, but the role of our great institutions is reportedly in flux.

Also expected to take part in the session are Ellen Weiss, vice president for news, NPR and Kevin Yen, YouTube director of strategic partnerships. Media oppositiors said "no negotiations" in the Right of Reply bill even as the proponents had made suggestions to "tone down" the penalties in the measure. (By Philippine News Service) /MP