Sasot’s outrage sets dangerous precedent

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines is appalled by the utterly uncalled for and unjustified public confrontation that pro-administration blogger Sass Rogando Sasot forced on BBC Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head as she took umbrage over the British network’s interview of Jover Laurio, who is behind the anti-administration Pinoy Ako blog.

We are sure that the BBC is fully capable of explaining the circumstances behind the Laurio interview just as Sasot can expound in detail why she was so angered that a “very minor blogger” deserved notice by the international network.

What we do object to, however, is the gall with which she lambasted and attempted to blame a journalist for content published by his outfit in which he had neither control nor participation in—points she eventually had to acknowledge.

Sasot only succeeded in betraying her utter ignorance on how the media work. This sets a dangerous precedent if her deplorable behavior is emulated by the wide following she claims to have.

Such an indiscriminate attitude of singling out people because of mere affiliation with media outfits that Sasot and her ilk, as well as their followers, may disagree with or find objectionable is extremely dangerous and can only worsen the impunity with which the profession and its practitioners are attacked in what has long remained as one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists.

We note that Sasot was with Assistant Communications Secretary Mocha Uson, who should have known better that what Sasot was doing was not only wrong but dangerous.

ATTY. JO CLEMENTE, acting chair, DABET PANELO, secretary general, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, nujphil@gmail.com