Beware of technology, be fair, verify. ‘Mamser’ forum affirms: Values of news reporting apply as well to gender coverage
Beware of technology, be fair, verify. ‘Mamser’ forum affirms: Values of news reporting apply as well to gender coverage
JASON A. BAGUIA
Special to CJJ
Nov. 16, 2024
Lessons from the social media storm over the Jude Bacalso controversy, as gleaned from a forum conducted by the Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC) and Stet-Women in Cebu Media as part of the 2024 Cebu Press Freedom Week celebration.
What instructions on reporting can journalists take from the social media furor over the communication incident involving prominent personality Jude Bacalso and a waiter in Cebu City restaurant back in July 2024?
A forum titled “Mamser: Improving media reporting on gender” — held on Sept. 19, 2024 at Marcelo B. Fernan Cebu Press Center as one of several forums during the Cebu Press Freedom Week celebration — chose the Jude Bacalso incident as news peg for the discussion .
I moderated the forum organized by Cebu Citizens-Press Council and Stet -Women in Cebu Media.
Resource persons were Bacalso, Chase Go who is Transman Equality and Awareness Movement’s president, and lawyer-teachers Ian Vincent Manticajon and Archill Niña Capistrano of University of the Philippines Cebu College.
The forum was aimed at helping journalists and news organizations generate guidelines to improve news coverage of gender.
To recall, the interaction between Bacalso and a waiter became controversial after news of it broke in social media and picked up by both local and national press.
Bacalso, a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, was addressed “sir” by the waiter and felt “mis-gendered.” Bacalso allegedly made the waiter stand for close to two hours for a lecture on proper address for LGBTQIA+ members.
(The waiter’s real name and other basic information such as his age were not disclosed in media. Only his native town [Palompon, Leyte], the barangay in Cebu City where he resides [Tinago], and his lawyer [Atty. Ron-Ivan Gingoyon] were published.)
Jude Bacalso, center of the controversy that was the news peg for the forum, shares his opinion on mis-gendering.
RELATED: Guidelines on gender reporting, gathered from the CCPC-Stet (Women in Media) forum.
For me, three items of information stood out of those that I gathered from the forum and are worth pondering on for better journalism.
The first has to do with technology.
Mis-attributed to Bacalso
I learned during the forum that at the height of the controversy, when the public was more or less divided between those who felt the waiter maliciously misgendered Bacalso and those who felt the former was bullied by the latter, social media posts were mis-attributed to Bacalso.
Bacalso, in fact, had taken a hiatus from social media.
As we progress toward elections in 2025, and the internet is again a political battlefield, how might journalists ensure that a social media account in someone’s name is not in fact a tool for impersonation and to inflict damage on anyone?
Verifying source of posts
Now more than ever, it is important for reporters to verify the sources of social media posts.
It is easy for anyone to set up a dummy account claiming to represent anyone without that person’s awareness.
Unless someone or a person’s official representative confirms being the source of a social media statement, unless someone indubitably owns a social media account, utterances therein must be deemed questionable and unfit for publication with attribution.
The second item of information elicits a revisit of the norms of reporting and commentary when one side of a news story remains unrepresented.
Fodder for comment
I learned during the forum that while Bacalso had not issued any comment soon after the incident, it nevertheless became fodder for commentary in traditional and social media.
It bears repeating that provided newsrooms establish that someone has remained silent with regard to an issue, the efforts of journalists to seek comment and failure to reach the source for any must themselves be reported.
At the same time, however, it is equally important for journalists to seek independent sources (emphasis on the plural) who can freely recount an incident: eyewitnesses, for instance.
The absence of independent sources must then give pause to news teams for further reflection on how best to report a sensitive issue with care.
Subsequently, commentary must be judicious though rich comment is so tempting amid the media-wide scramble for audience shares on and offline.
The photo of Jude Bacalso with the waiter was etched in people’s minds by repetitive posting in social media.
Wrong words from a photo
Lastly, I learned once again from the forum that while a picture may say a thousand words, those words could all be wrong.
Soon after the incident, a picture had circulated on the internet in which Bacalso was seated at a table while the waiter stood nearby.
A picture like this calls for astute photojournalism.
It appears that public outrage against Bacalso had been fueled by captions, not necessarily written by professional journalists, to the effect that the media personality berated the waiter.
This conjecture based on a still picture was contested by Bacalso, who asserts having dealt with the matter with humor and tact, and without any intention to go public.
The media wave and public agitation in view of this incident has mooted the question of whether it ought to have remained a private affair.
Into limelight without consent
Reporters ought to have looked for opportunities to find out the truth behind the picture.
Were the words of the one who released it faithful to the facts? What really happened?
As things stood, to both Bacalso and the waiter, they were, without their consent, thrust into the limelight.
Whether covering gender or other issues, journalistic protocols are evergreen, even in our digitized contexts: Seek the facts, be fair, and do no harm. 
JASON A. BAGUIA is a researcher with the Media Narratives and Cultural Memory research group, Center for Research in Communication and Culture at Universidade Catolica Portuguesa (UCP) in Lisbon, Portugal.
A journalist since 2002, he taught in the B.A. Communication and B.A. Religious Education (Pastoral Communication) programs of University of the Philippines Cebu and Don Bosco Formation Center.
He is an organizer of UCP’s annual, international Journalism Studies Research Symposium.