When Colombian President Gustavo Petro, described journalist María Jimena Dussán and others as carrying out “Mossad journalism” – in reference to the Israeli spy agency – colleagues of Dussán and press freedom organizations were quick in condemning the leader’s statements.
Colombia’s Foundation for Freedom of the Press (FLIP, for its acronym in Spanish) rejected “the strategy that President Gustavo Petro has maintained around discrediting and stigmatizing the work of journalists and media outlets that oversee the management of his government.” This in turn made the FLIP a target of attacks from the president himself and his followers.
Criticism of the media and journalists is common, taking into account the inevitable tension created by journalism’s role of oversight. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is known for using his popular 'mañaneras,' morning press conferences, to attack the work of journalists, and Argentine President Javier Milei increasingly targets journalists, including on social media.
The accusations of Petro and his followers focus on what they consider to be bias in the media and a lack of oversight when journalistic principles are violated.
And although many of these attacks and accusations are intended to create an environment of censorship and self-censorship, the truth is that not all criticism can be considered a violation of press freedom.
“We are not infallible. We journalists have to be open to public scrutiny without a doubt,” said Yolanda Ruiz, co-director of the Gabo Foundation's Ethics Office.
In 2000, the Gabo Foundation created the Ethics Office as an online space that provides guidance to journalists, editors, professors and journalism students in Latin America “on all types of ethical dilemmas they face in the exercise of their profession.”
LatAm Journalism Review (LJR) spoke with Ruiz as part of its “5 questions” series for the purpose of talking about the line between critique and attempted censorship, violations of the ethical principles of journalism, the need for self-critique exercises and the role of audiences in this process.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.*
1. One of the most common critiques of media has to do with accusations of bias. On the other hand, it is true that media can have editorial lines. When or in what situations can the editorial line become an ethical problem for media?
Yolanda Ruiz: All media have an editorial line, it is the perspective from which we stand. It is impossible to do journalism without bias. The problem is not having an editorial line. The problem is believing that it is the only view that exists and beginning to distort reality in favor of that editorial line. This is where we somehow cross the ethical line.
The issue is when we start to stop seeing things that happen, we stop covering certain events, we stop reporting on certain people, we do not take into account opinions, we do not take into account data that are fundamental for audiences and for them to understand reality, simply because we believe that it is not in line with our editorial line or our bias.
When we begin to engage in political activism through the media outlet, for example, there is a problem. Having an editorial line is fine as long as it is recognized that there are other ways of thinking, that facts have multiple interpretations and that we have the ability as journalists to see that reality and to have many more nuances and many more sources when reporting.
2. Another of the accusations is usually directed towards an alleged immunity of the media. Comments like “who monitors the media” are common, even among presidents. What is the line between valid critique or oversight of the media and what could be stigmatizations and attacks that lead to censorship or self-censorship?
The question about who monitors the media in particular is very valid because we must keep in mind that the press is the overseer of all powers, but the press itself is a power and therefore also requires oversight. Now the question is, “whose responsibility is it”? First of all, peers, the journalists themselves, and fortunately there are many colleagues and media outlets who are critiquing the media, who are fact-checking. All of this is very important to improve the quality of what we do.
Additionally, the academy and society itself. Audiences have to look for much more quality in what the media produce. In the majority of legislation in different countries there are rules regarding, for example, calumnia and injuria [broadly, defamation], which are tools that citizens have when they feel that the media violate their rights.
What cannot happen is that States or governments feel they have the right to censor simply because they do not like the media’s work. And unfortunately that happens.
On the other hand, it is also true that many times the press does not do the work or critique it should carry out over the powers with due rigor, especially because in these times of great political polarization, in different countries the media end up aligned in one or another side and sometimes cede, a little, the rigor of the professional standards of journalism for the sake of a political position. There you begin to see a problem because some media can begin to play the role, so to speak, of political contenders and not of journalists.
3. Could the Printing Courts or Press Councils help in this scenario where a media outlet is accused of doing something wrong or failing to comply with ethical principles?
I am not a big fan of talking about the Court when we talk about ethics. I find the approach of press councils or editors' councils interesting. Having advice from editors, from the journalists themselves who can in some way critique the media, an oversight of what is being published could help because that also allows audiences to notice that we are engaging in self-criticism, that we look inward, that we try to do things better.
Very often what happens is that when criticism is made it is considered to be violating press freedom and this is not always the case. Indeed, sometimes press freedom is violated when an attempt is made to censor a journalist, when a journalist is attacked, when a journalist is persecuted, but not every criticism of the media or journalists is an attack on press freedom. Many times it is simply the oversight that has to be exercised over the press or media criticism that is very valuable to improve the work we do.
If you have a press council, a council of editors that can help critique media from within, understanding how work is done in the media, it would be tremendously valuable. And that could help improve the content and help audiences also understand that the press carries out an exercise in self-critique that is not done from arrogance and from what is often considered the infallibility of the press. We are not infallible. We journalists have to be open to public scrutiny without a doubt.
4. What can this exercise of self-criticism be like within the journalistic profession?
I was talking about it in the sense that there can be a council of editors or press councils that allows us to do this work of self-critique. Within the media themselves, it should also be a recurring and permanent exercise to be attentive to criticism that comes from audiences or different sectors, to requests for rectification and so on. For example, one of the fundamental elements is if there is space for rectification, to do so in full detail and explain what happened. You have to be transparent with the audience. Many times you see media that have made mistakes and try not to recognize it, they try to leave through the back door. If we manage to make corrections in front of the audiences, that gives us greater credibility.
The new social media scenarios also give us the opportunity to have direct contact with audiences. Creating spaces for conversation with audiences, with media analysts, with media critics can also allow us to do a better job of understanding that work can improve every day, that we can make mistakes but that we can improve.
There are several tools that can be used to understand that the demands are very high and we have to meet those high standards of quality and journalistic ethics.
5. You have said previously that sometimes audiences do not consume quality information (the most viewed articles are not necessarily the best). In that sense, their criticism may not be about quality, but about their emotional reaction. What should be the role of audiences in the midst of this demand for the media to improve and what can journalism do to educate that audience?
A very big help from audiences would be to ask them not to look for media outlets or journalists who confirm the prejudice they have about things. In these times of so much fundamentalism and so much polarization, I think it is very important to think and challenge thinking. And that is not achieved if we only see or look for media that ratify what we believe. You have to look for other alternatives and you have to think critically in the sense of trying to understand and reason first.
Secondly, also tell them not to just stay with the headline, not to stay with the meme, not to stay with the Tweet or the post on social networks, to try to go further, to look at the entire article, read the full text, look for more information.
And I would also tell them to reward, by sharing, work that they consider to be good journalism, not because they think they agree with what they say, but because it is a well-done exercise, because it works with several sources, because it contrasts, because it has elements that help to understand. Audiences very often 'reward' what they don't like and criticize, and they share the content that seems terrible to them and rarely share the content that they think is good.
