Responsible Journalism Evolving

Back in the day before the internet, the public audience can be accessed only by the mass media - print and broadcast.  They were (and still are) bound by the laws of LIBEL.  So they were expected to observe RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM amidst the privilege of freedom of expression.  

Today, the public audience has become accessible to you and me, to my kids, to my sister, my friends.  Thanks to the internet, everyone has been given a share of the world's attention. RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM is taking on a wider stance and is evolving to RESPONSIBLE SOCIAL NETWORKING.

While you and I now have the freedom to say anything we want over the worldwide web, we have the responsibility over its effects.  If we want to tell the world how terrible Tom is, how ugly Dick is and that Harry is a criminal, we are responsible for our intentions for saying so. If we only mean to defame them, to destroy their reputation, can we just go on with our lives, and form this habit of attacking anyone's name like drinking coffee regularly in the morning?

The recent development at the Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of the controversial online libel provision in Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act gives RESPONSIBLE NETWORKING a stronger grip on all of us.  While we enjoy freedom of expression, we should observe RESPONSIBILITY.

Every veteran mass media practitioner is abreast with this ethic. It's nothing new.  It has just taken wider coverage, and it now covers you and me.  You and I don't have to be a mass media professional now to live this moral value.