Last week, I complained to the Reader's Advocate Mr. Palabrica about the
Inquirer's erroneous article on Lacson-Pelaez handcuffs deal. Compare their article to
this one from ABS-CBNNEWS.
Mr. Palabrica responded with an email:
Quote:
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You are right. The Aug. 22 news report was erroneous. The statement
of Blanquita Pelaez, which was the basis of the report, should have
been
verified first before it was published.
Fortunately, the error was immediately discovered and so the
following day, the newspaper came up with another report stating that
the $3 million award earlier made was set aside by the higher court.
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Although Mr. Palabrica admitted the mistake privately in email, and they came up with
this followup report, there was still no correction. Instead, what they did was more akin to a coverup than coming clean to their readers of the paper about the factual errors of their earlier Lacson-Pelaez handcuffs article.
So I emailed him this letter in response to his email:
Quote:
Dear Mr. Palabrica,
I read your email and I did check on the Inquirer's follow-up report. I'm assuming this is the followup article you are referring to.
Correct me if I'm wrong Mr. Palabrica, but I didn't see any correction in that article. All your reporters did was to call up Ping Lacson and got him to say that he will not have to pay $3 million to Pelaez.
The problem though is that since it was Lacson whom your reporters quoted on the Pelaez issue, your readers would be understandably skeptical of such declarations coming from Ping.
I mean, which of the two would typical Inquirer readers trust? The California court, which the Inquirer earlier claimed, reaffirmed its earlier decision to award a three-million-dollar default judgment? OR Ping Lacson’s “self-serving” statement in the Inquirer the following day?
Even if it was Pelaez who fed your reporters the wrong information, the Inquirer shouldn’t turn this into a “he said, she said” where it is up to the readers to decide whom to believe. It shouldn’t be that way. Either your reporters grossly misinterpreted the California court decision or Pelaez misinformed your reporters.
The right thing to do is to first identify the mistake clearly to the readers -- then correct it.
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Hanggang ngayon, hinihintay ko pa rin ang sagot niya... but i doubt he will email me back.
sa totoo lang, the inquirer needs a corrections box like the one in NYT or the Washington Post more than ever now kung puro errors lang ang lumalabas sa papers nila.