May 10, 2012

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines is deeply concerned about the caption that accompanied the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s photo of a woman in a burka shaking President Benigno Aquino III’s hand, which was captioned, “Security Risk.”

It is disturbing that the paper cleared such a blatantly bigoted caption, especially after the firestorm of criticism it reaped in the wake of the Demetrio Vicente fiasco, when PDI ran a series of unflattering photos of the stroke victim when he appeared at the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona and labeled it “Character witness.”

We are also bothered by the thought that because of the caption writer’s irresponsibility, the blame might be unfairly laid on the photographer whose byline accompanies the photograph.

Clearly, the PDI owes an apology and an explanation to the public, to Muslims and to its own staff photographer.

Needless to say, it should also promise to be extra careful never to let this happen again.

 

Reference

Rowena Paraan
Secretary General