Soliven: Media also to blame for RP crisis

Philippine Star publisher Max Soliven believes the media are partly to blame over the crisis presently sweeping the country.

Soliven, a pillar of the media industry, said several media practitioners ride on issues despite the lack of substantial basis and credible sources.

"The power of the media is the power of persuasion and the power of persuasion will work only if you tell the truth," Soliven said in yesterday's forum entitled "Government and Media in Times of Crisis" held at the Marcelo B. Fernan Cebu Press Center.

Soliven, together with Sec. Cerge Remonde of Government for Media, addressed local media practitioners and students during the forum on the relationship and role of media and government during crisis.

Emphasizing responsibility in exercising press freedom, Soliven tipped the audience of a tested way to preserve one's credibility: sticking to the basics of news reporting by answering the five W's- what, when, where, who and why- and one H- how.

Soliven said he and his contemporaries in the media learned the value of freedom the hard way when he was incarcerated with former senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, who exposed in his television program the plan of former president Ferdinand Marcos to declare martial law. He was arrested two days after the exposé was aired.

"We appreciate our freedoms the day we lose them...the pen is not mightier than the sword," Soliven said.

Remonde, who started as a media practitioner in Cebu, agreed with Soliven, saying: "what is taught in the newsroom today is not necessarily the unembellished truth".

Remonde was referring to some media outfits that craft stories in a manner that would attract advertisers. "We are driven by what is hot...we have gone away from the basics," he said, adding that, "freedom that is oftentimes abused is freedom diminished."

As the government media chief, Remonde said he has seen the both sides -the government and the media. "It is easier to criticize than to build," he said of the media.

"Because of our propensity to generate more heat than light, we publish or broadcast stories even with those unverified or have been born of hearsay or quoting unnamed sources," he said.

He cited as example the exposé linking President Gloria Arroyo's husband and son to jueteng. Since the testimonies of the supposed witnesses were heard in the Senate, Remonde said "whatever they say are dutifully broadcast" in the media.

"We have to be concerned of our responsibility," he said.

Soliven said that "media should not be carried away by its own power," as what every journalist's purpose is to inform the people. But this, Remonde quipped, seems to have been forgotten.

But the two veteran journalists believe that media still remains the watchdog of the government. "We work like dogs in pursuit of truth," said Soliven, adding that the journalists' lives are always "on the line."

"You are there in the trenches of journalism fighting for our country to be great not again but at last," Soliven said of those journalists who are doing their job well.

He advised the would-be journalists to never be afraid in searching for the truth, as "God favors the brave."

Yesterday's forum was part of a series of activities during the observance of the Cebu Press Freedom Week. - Joeberth M. Ocao and Liv G. Campo