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[av_heading heading=’Citing US court cases, Roque says ‘false info may help in public debate’’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
BY PRINCE GOLEZ
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February 1, 2018
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MANILA – Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque clarified that the Duterte government does not promote the spread of misinformation or “fake news.”
But Roque pointed out that misinformation – despite its risks – may “make a valuable contribution to public debate.”
Roque has been criticized for a statement he made on Jan. 28 in Iloilo City that people would not know real news without fake news.
“What I said earlier … should not be taken as governmental encouragement of fake news. Far from it,” he said in a statement released on Wednesday.
Fake news “should find no place as a matter of governmental policy,” he said. “Enlightened citizens should be able to pick out chaff from grain and appreciate what good journalism is about.”
But in an apparent defense of the context of “fake news” in his earlier statement, Roque – mentioning American court cases – cited the allowing of “mistakes in reportage” in the United States.
Journalism in the United States, he said, “has a sordid history in the so-called ‘penny press’ of promoting quackery and all sorts of things that today would not be considered respectable journalism.”
“In New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), the US Supreme Court allowed that even mistakes in reportage on public figures are excusable … otherwise, the free and unimpeded discussion of public issues would be hindered,” said Roque.
Citing another US Supreme Court decision, quoting John Stuart Mill, Roque said “even a false statement may be deemed to make a valuable contribution to public debate, since it brings about ‘the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.’”
“Reasoned public deliberation is the better recourse despite the attendant risks posed by falsehood and misinformation,” said the presidential spokesman./PN
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