A FREE press should:
Always fight for progress and reform,
Never tolerate injustice and corruption,
Always fight demagogues of all parties,
Never belong to any party,
Always oppose privileged classes and public
plunderers,
Never lack sympathy with the poor,
Always remain devoted to the public welfare.
Nine years ago, Punto! Central Luzon was established,
grounded on Joseph Pulitzer’s so-called Seven Commandments on the function of
the press in a democracy. That, which we have taken to heart and lived up to –
to the best of our efforts.
As indeed, Pulitzer anew: "An
able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know
the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which
popular government is a sham and a mockery.”
Pananaw ng Malayang Pilipino. Our motto transcends sheer sloganeering, becoming our
very article of faith, articulated in the core values we pursue in the practice
of our calling – embodied in our own Eleven Commandments:
I.
No business to
promote.
II.
No vested
interests to protect.
III.
No politics to
serve.
IV.
No personality to
praise.
V.
No agenda –
hidden or otherwise – to advance.
VI.
No favor.
VII.
No fear.
VIII.
All truth.
IX.
All accuracy.
X.
All fairness.
XI.
All free.
Tempered as we are though
by the words of the great American editor William Allen White in his The Emporia Daily Gazette dated April 25, 1923 yet: “A newspaper has one
obligation and one only, to print the truth as far as it is humanly possible,
and to comment upon the truth as candidly and as kindly as humanly possible
never forgetting to be merry the while. For after all the liar and the cheat
and the panderer are smaller offenders than the solemn ass.”
Nothing straighter to the
point than that.
Nothing straighter to the
point than Punto! in that.
From Day One. To Year Nine
now. For ever.
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