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PHILIPPINHIOURNALISMREVIEW

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rEI IITOR'S NOTE

N IUNE 26 this year, the Mani la pressreported the results of a Pulse Asia surveywhich said that L9 percent-or nearly on"e

out of five Filipinos, or about L5 million out of anestimated 80 mil l ion population - felt that thecountry was hopeless arid would leave it at the first

A "FALSE PROPHET''?

opportunity.Although not as controversial as it

appeared-anecdotal evidence has longsuggested that disappointment over thefailure of People Power 1,, a^d after 2001,,People Power 2, to bfing about changes ingovemance, politics and the ,economy hadcreated an ironic sense of hopelessnessamong the middle class-the Pulse Asiasurvey provoked a comment f romPresidentGloria Macapagal Arroyo that byemphasizing what she called "the badnews," certain sectors of the press werebeing "false prophets."

"Who are the false prophets? There arethose who tell a lie or those who tell a half-truth or only tell part of the truth...Theyinclude those who give only the bad newsto the extent that if the bad news is sopervasive, it brings about a state ofhelp lessness. . . (and) skept ic ism in thecountry.

"So beware of them," cont inuedPresident Arroyo. "It is important to pointout also the good news to balance it so thatour people will not despair."

The criticism that the press reports onlythe bad news is a theme every Philippinepresident wi th in memory - f romFerdinand Marcos to Corazon Aquino toFidel Ramos to Joseph Estrada-has felt itnecessary to explore.

The agreement among these formerpresidents and now PresidentArroyo thatthe press emphasizes, focuses orL or limitsitsglf solely to the bad neiars is apparentlybased on perceptions drawn from theirdaily reading of the newspapers.

They define bad news, although not in

so many words, as news about graft andcorrupt ion, coup at tempts, the badperformance of the economy, poverty,social unrest, etc.-as news that reflectsbadly on the government-even as goodnews is defined as reports on positivedevelopments, among them the successstories of individuals, economic growth,and those reports that suggest that all's notlost, among them stories about honestpolicemen, dedicated teachers, and so on.

Events and developments that can bethe subject of both "bad news" as well as"good news" reports do happen even inpoverty-stricken, crisis-wracked Philip-pines.

President Arroyo is correct indemanding "balance" - but in the sense ofthe need for the press not to be committedto any agenda of reporting only the badnews, but news whether good or bad. It isalso equally valid for the Presiderit todemand reporting as much of the truth ofan event rather than reporting only partof it, because any omission can result inreaders' getting a mistaken understandingof an event and its significance.

She is, however, mistaken in assumingthat the newspapers, except for a fewexceptions, ignore events that can belabeled "good news" or that they arededicated solely to reporting the "badnews."

That there does seem to be more badnews in the newspapers than good newshas less to do with the malice of individualnewspapers as with the events that dailydemand their attention. Kidnappings and

murders, for example, do happen morefrequently than taxi drivers returningmoney left in their cabs, or murderers'being caught.

As this was being written, for example,there was a dearth of the good news thatPresident Arroyo and her predecessorsequal ly crave/ wi th the impendingcollapse of the peace talks between thegovernment and the National DemocraticFront (NDF) occupying the front pages,together with speculations that she hadsanctioned the filing of graft charges agairutformer Secretary of Education Raul Rocoto force his resignation, and to erode hispopularity as a potential presidentialcandidate in 2004.

Yet noticeable in the press, even in suchgovernment nemeses as the PhilippineDally Inquirer, are the reports that do tryto look for something to celebrate even asthe country is assailed by events anddevelopments that can hardly be describedas encouraging. In the June 30 issue of theInquirer, for example, P/R noted several"good news" reports amid reports on theresignation of former Foreign AffairsSecretary Teofisto Guingona (for example,"Good cops turn to farming," by AndreaTrinidad Echavez). This deliberate effort,however, does raise questions of its own,among them that of whether seeking thegood news is any bit better for journalismand the public as seeking out the bad.

For all this, however, the debate overwhat the news is supposed to be is a realenough issue, and not only in Philippinejournalism. P/R thus thought it timely todevote part of this issue to a discussion ofi! which begins on pp. 18-19, and continuesin pages 20-22,23, 24-26, and 27-28.

(,0,,{,t*LUIS V. TEODORO

Editor

Pt|lLlPPlflE J0URllAtlSl'l REVIEW I August 2002

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ByLusvre.d.r.lf Iffit*iiffi?n#the most crucial in the !media's informational

practice.Thus is news defined with great

diff iculty even by experienced ,practitioners and academics. A ,'quick scan of the usual attempts atdefinit iorr, to start with,reveals fundamentald i s a g r e e m e n t o v e r 'whether it refers to anoccurrence in time andspace/ or to the account ofthat occurrence.

The d isagreement i sequaled by disputes over whatcharacteristics define newsAlthough there does appear tobe agreement over such factorsas t imeliness, reader/viewerinterest, and significance, there isat the same time skepticism amongcer ta in p rac t i t ioners and evenacademics (the late Curtis McDougal ofInterpretatiae Reporting fame being amongthe latter) over either the wisdom or thepossibility of ever arriving at an objectivedefinition of it.

"News is what the editors say it is," is avirtual mantra arnong the more hardboiledpractitioners in the Philippines, amongwhorn we f ind that generation gl iblydescribed as belonging to the "the oldschool." Their "definition" suggests that

many editors defir-re news on the wing-or , as Edmund Lambeth (Commi t ted

lournalisnt) puts it, intuitively and on an adhoc basis: they know news when they seeit. I

This generafibn- mostly practitionerswho made their way through journalismwithout the curse (or benefit) of too rnuchformal training- scoffs at t l -re idea ofjournal ism's serving ends other thankeeping the public interested in buyingnewspapers , and mak ing the ownershapPy.

They are skept ica l to the po in t o fcyn ic ism. They s imi la r ly re jec t anysuggestion that the news should keep thepublic informed for any purpose beyonditself. They reject-correctly, it seerns toth is somet ime prac t i t ioner who l i ved

through the rnartial law period-any notion of the press' serving

a " deve lopmenta l "

PurPose.The skepticismdoes help pre-vent the errantn o n s e n s e

i m p l i c i t i n t h eview that tire news,

even be fore i t ' swritten, must serve a

purpose predeterrninedby repo r te r and /o r

ed i to r -o r tha t to serve apublic purpose, the news must

be "good news . " Bu t i t a l soffiffireduces the news fur-rction to thes imp le exped ien t o f r epo r t i ng

whatever editors believe will interestthe public at any given time- whether

it be the current Philippine President'sterno of choice for her next State of theNation Address, or Kris Aquino's most

recent rornantic involvement.The skep t i c i sm

notwithstanding, t l-rey w,ouldprobably re ject McDougal 's

(lnterpre tatiae Reporting, 1990)definit ion. Yet McDougal is as

hardboiled as thev come. focused onthe news' seeming undefinability

beyond the pol i t ical and economicinterests that drive news in free market

' societies (news, says McDougal, is"anyth ing a newspaper pr in ts for

profit").McDougal's definition, hon,ever, does

focus on that aspect of the news functionwhich, while exerting the most influenceon it, too many practitioners refuse to

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PHILIPPIt{t J0URt.|ALISI'l Rt\tltW I August )002t8

discuss, even if they've had first-handexperience with i t : that news is oftendefined as anything that can sell morecopies in furtherance of the newspaperorganization's goals as a commercialenterprise. r

For all this, however, and as the PulitzerPrize-winning journalist Jack Fuller (NezosValues,1996) suggests, i t is possible toapproximate a definition of news that's notwholly subjective, and which looks beyondthe journalist's (or the owners') personalpreferences.

News is f i r s t o f a l l an account o fsomething recent (timeliness). It is also areport that is of interest to readers, andthird, significant to them not only becauseit can affect their lives, but also because ithappened in their immediate community(proximity and relevance).

[arger truthsEven more critically, news must be

accurate, and not only in the sense that itgets the names, dates and places right, butalso in terms of presenting "the largertruths" in a given issue and in society ingeneral. Is the head of the Moro IslamicLiberation Front (MILF) Hashim SalamatorSalamatHashim? Getting the name rightis important, but of equal importance arethe demands of the MILF as a key tounderstanding the "larger truth" about the"Bangsa Moro problem" ( the MILF'spreferred term to describe what it wantsto address),

Though a seemingly simple i4junction,being accurate has prov€n to beproblematic, it seems specially for Filipinojournalists, many of whom not only havethe usual v ices of cer ta in journal is tseverywhere (incompetence, an inability toIisten, malice), but who also compoundthose vices with the difficulties of wrestlingrvith a foreign language.

In the Philippine setting the results canbe dismaying if not disastrous, speciallyn'hen the inaccuracies are committed by anewspaper powerful enough to determine-Jre subject of national discourse merely:hrough the expedient of putling it in largen'pe onthe ftontpage. The Philippine Daily"-.iuirer, for example, misread a statement:'; the National Democratic Front's Josel'Ia. Sison, in which he suggested thatlnong the New People's Army's possible::sponses to a "total war" policy by: :r'ernment could be its destroying power-res. For some reason the reporter saidJson had "call(ed) on" and even "ordered"

the NPA to destroy power l ines, thussetting off predictably belligerent reactionsfrom var ious sources inc luding thePhi l ipp ine mi l i tary, senators andcongressmen-all of whom assumed thetruth of the Inquirer report.

Accuracy for democratizationIf inaccurate reporting can escalate war

rhetoric, endanger peace processes andeven set off a chain of events that can leadto actual confl ict, on the other hand,accuracy can help a community acquire theunderstanding of events and thei rcontextual izat ion cr i t ica l todemocratization. A report that gets thenames, places and dates right, and at thesame t ime provides background andexplanat ion, can do wonders inempower ing a communi ty towardsmaking it aware not only of the dimensionsof its problems, but also of the possibilitiesfor its solution.

Many journalists, however, will frownat the suggestion that part of their work isthat of suggesting, implying, or evenreport ing possib le solut ions to theproblems they report, sometimes withstudied exaggerat ion. They l imi tthemselves to uncovering and describingproblems in the belief that their publicresponsibility ends with the last paragraphin an expose on say, the destruction of theenvironment in a particular locality. i

But as the late editor Jenkin Lloyd Jonessaid more than forty years ago ("TheInexactScience of TruthTelling," The Prbssand the Public Interest, '1968), "thenewspaper's obligation to the welfare ofthe community is...fundamental."

The practitioner, in the first place, is acitizen who only happens to be a joumalist,either out of choice or happenstance, whodoes not turn in his citizenship at thenewsroom door. The journalist "should beequally the citizen, participating to thefullest in the life and aspirations of his(community)." (Hodding Carter, "TheEditor as Citizen," Ibid.)

No authent ic journal is t can c la imwithout lying that he or she is unconcemedwith the issues that confront hiscommunity, whether itbe the entire nationor the municipality of his birth andf orresidence. His or her concem- or at leasthis/her interest- is usually evident in theway he/she chooses which events to reporton, in the emphasis he/she gives certainaspects of that event, and in the way he/she exercises the selectivitv inherent in

reporting.Despite what should be a self-evident

fact, many reporters and editors shun anyengagement wi th thei r respect ivecommuni t ies beyond report ing i tsproblems. Instead of ' meaningfu lengagement, the result is distance, fromwhere the journalist-into whose headboth the schools as wel l as o lderpractitioners have drummed the idea ofneutrality and objectivity in the sense ofnon-involvement- reports on eventsobserved without being part of them.

And yet both engagement in the affairsof the community and neutrality arepossible, if we define neutrality as it shouldbe defined: as signifying that respect forthe facts and the responsibility of truth-te l l ing inherent in the pr imaryresponsibility of the joumalistic enterprise.

The test of factsA conflict between respecting the facts,

and reporting the truth and communityadvocacy and engagement, arises onlywhen the reporter distorts the news, orwithholds essential information for thesake of proving his or her advocacy correct.One's advocacy or engagement in thecommunity, rather than an excuse for falsereporting, should on the contrary be validenough to stand the test of the facts; it isotherwise a cause un\ rorthy of anyone.

What this means is that the joumalistcommib no violence to the responsibility oftrutfFtelling il, after exposing a bad situation,or identifying and describing a problem as anewsworthy subject he or she proceeds tosuggest options to address it which thecommunity can discuss

This approach is in fact validated by theneed, increasingly urgent in the Philippines,for its citizens to gain a better appreciationof the state of thei r country andcommunity, and what can be done aboutrt.

On an almost daily basis, however, thenews is in practice limited to the gleefulpresentation of the country's problems,which one suspects has contr ibutedimmensely to the near universal despairand helplessness regnant in Philippinesociety. Instead of empowering citizensthis approach does exactly the opposite-whereas, as has been demonstrated incountries in far worse situations than thePhilippines, no citizenry is so powerless thatit cannot once armed with the informationvital to decision making, exercise the.sovereign power to make choices.g,

I

Pt|lLlPPlllE J0URllALlSl'l REVItW I August 2002 | 9

By Vergel O. Santos

PROACHED BY themedia on the day

resident GloriaMacapagal-Arroyo delive-red her state of the nationreport, Monday, for leavingher party and switching tothe oppositiory Ted Failoruthe congressional represen-tative from Leyte, said hehad done so for his ownpolitical independence. InMrs. Arroyo's party, hesaid, he could not so muchas open his mouth toquestion, let alone goagainst the party's positionon whatever issue.

Let us leave it at that for the moment,and reshain ourselves from leaping to allsorts of conclusions - from putting our cartbefore our horse, as it were. Let us first setthe perspective in which to put Mr. Failonand his thinking as revealed by his partyswitch.

Failon has not left the news rnediadespite his election as congressman. He haskept one foot there as have Senators LorenLegarda and Noli de Castro. In fact, all threeof them were once full-time colleagues onthe same radio-television network, haveowed their election to their daily exposureto the mass audiences, and now straddle twoinstitutions of which one is supposed towatch the other in arguably the most criticalarrangement in a democracy.

As politics-media straddlers, they are ineffect watching thernselves and theit fellowofficials and politicians. How can they keepthemselves rnutual ly honest? Ah, butmutuallyhappy.

Apparently to go around that criticalanomaly, Failon affects to bring us the goodrews. He comes on at 4 p.m. every Saturdayon a show called - but what else! - "Good

\ews". No, it is not one of those showsrntended for Christian believers, in which'the good news" refers to what their GoodBook says, and which therefore goes

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GWBwsWunquestioned as good indeed. It is, rather, asecular show telling secular stories aboutsecular good people and their secular goodwork. And by not discriminating againstcops and pol i t ic ians as incapable ofgoodness, it gives the appearance offaimess.

The whole thing is in facta mockery ofthe sense of faimess meant for news. Newsis supposed to be neither good nor bad, butneutral. It is for the customer, not themessenger, to say whether a piece of newsis good or bad. And he can judge that onlyfor himself - good if the news makes himhuppy, bad if it makes him unl..appy.

With his " good news," Failc r has decidedto make that judgment for the rustomer andto give him what he thinks ryill make himhuppy. He reckons that, rr edia being tooheavy with news that nakes peopleunhappy, a dose of the opposite surely willnot hurt. Taken exclusively in that contexfthe good news according to Failon mayseem not without virfue at all. But passedoff as joumalism, and by someone like himin particular, it lays itself open to suspicion.

Journalism requires that the news bepresented uninfluenced by whatever

as not to engender any false sense of security(as in the case of "good news") or alarm (aswith "bad news"). Thus, if it happens thatthe news brings more unhappiness thanhappiness it is not journalisrn's fault.

But shouldn't Failon have knowrl that?After all, wasn't he once one of the mostdominant voices on the airwaves, carryingthe news and bringing proper unhappiness(I would assume) across the nation nightafter nigl-rt? But then, again, other than self-promotion disguised as journalism, whatcan you expect of Failon now that he hasjoined the ranks of slraddlers and begunliving the two ethically irreconcilable livesof media man and congressrnan -watchdog and watched?

As I said on the first occasion I got tocomment on the subject, I could already seehis carnpaign poster for the next election:"Ted 'The Good News' Failon, t l-recongressman who made you happy." Or"With Ted 'The Good News' Failon, fuloyangligaya" (the fun continues).

Now, to go back to Failon's party-switching. Is it good news or bad? I meandoes it make you happy or unhappy? Tome, it's neither good news nor bad, becauseit makes me neither happy r-ror unhappy.What it makes me is laugh.

By some odd sense of deductior-r, notunlike tl-rat which he applies in distinguishingbetween good news and bad, Ted Failonthinks that by switching sides, instead ofstaying out of either, he gains his politicalindependence. And by some equally oddsense of physiology, he thinks that themouth - properly connected to the brairyof course - is ir-rcapable of producing freespeech by itself.

Isn't that silly news? 01

Pt|ltlPPlliE J0URllALlsl'l Rtl|lEW I August 2002 2 3