'In your face'

For the second week running, the public once again gets to hear and “see” what the media reports as a government official losing his cool.

Imagine that.

You open your “doors” or host members of media to a very relaxed and intimate gathering where the goal is to give access to information, exchange views and hopefully have some refreshments in between while building relationships or bonding.

But what actually happens is that someone asks a question, does not get the answer she wants, presses and pushes buttons to the extent of talking down to the host who just happens to be the Secretary of Foreign Affairs who in traditional circles does not normally appear at such gatherings because of established protocols or tradition. Unfortunately very few even realize that.

The one big lie that comes out of the incident is that the Secretary “got mad”, lost his cool, or got into an argument. At the very least they could have said they quarreled or they BOTH lost their cool. As I said before: fair is fair.

Why is it that when reporters and anchors editorialize the news, they are educating the public? But when a cabinet member honestly tells us that “we are not helping”, the cabinet member is branded as tactless?

Instead of airing both sides of the issue we “use” both sides to create tension, conflict and drama.

Is it not tactless to throw a sarcastic remark at the Presidential spokesperson and turn your back on him just because you don’t like his answer? Is it not placing your job and your company at risk when you take a verbally hostile position towards the very source of your information and income?

The fact of life in today’s media is that the news has adopted “Tabloid journalism” and sensationalism. Rather than simply report that Malacañang issued conflicting or defective memorandums, the focus was that the Presidential spokesperson got sore or “napikon”.

Ellen Tordesillas and Secretary Romulo are both kind and decent persons, unfortunately, in this instance “passion ruined the romance”. Determination and doggedness crossed the line of etiquette. 

What I found unbelievable though was the fact that Secretary Romulo’s people simply watched and fumbled.

Had the situation been a terrorist attack, Secretary Romulo would probably be in the hospital or in the morgue by now. No one stepped in to cut off the columnist for crossing the line. No one stepped in to take the “bullet” or stop the train or answer Ellen’s questions.

Perhaps, this is what happens to communications officers when they stay on the sidelines or are not regularly at the frontlines. We need to give them more work and more exposure or we need to delete them from the budget.

It’s not the first time that our associates in media “crossed the line” and forgot that in the end, “our job is to report about them, not be like them”.

Our job is to prove them right or wrong through fact-finding and good reporting. You don’t do it by acting like Senators conducting an investigation.

It is not our job to call them names on radio, embarrass them on national TV, or throw water, tomatoes or figurines at their face. At the very least, courtesy dictates that we respect our hosts, our guests and especially our news sources.

Something is seriously wrong when “reporters” can individually “jeer”, “insult” or, like members of a street gang, conspire to give officials a “good time” which is the equivalent of a bad trip.

There is something very wrong with media mindset when we start thinking and behaving that reporters are co-equals of cabinet members or when TV or radio anchors regularly berate government personnel as if “they” the media were the boss and in-charge.

It is cause for concern when editors, officers or even owners willfully give up control and discipline of their employees and call it “freedom” or “independence”. It’s bad business policy when certain people keep seniority and stays too long at a beat or an assignment.

Sooner or later all of this oversight or willful abuse will do more than cause conflict between government and media. At the moment many media practitioners who act professionally are getting dragged into the aftermath. A number of us find it more difficult to build up relations and information sources because people have become suspicious or openly hostile towards “media”.

It has also been suggested that a number of the killings of journalists is not because of their profession but how they conducted themselves in their profession. The extremes have been set between fear and violence, but the field is wide in terms of how “enemies” of the media might ultimately turn the tables.

We all know how certain industries and businessmen have time and again used the power of advertising to tie our hands, or get us fired. From tobacco to casino, business ultimately gets fed up and fights back. Unemployment is just a phone call away and your press corps friends wont be of help.

During my father’s time we saw on two occasions how government officials substantially affected the bottom lines of newspapers, radio or TV when a collective decision was made to blacklist or boycott a particular brand or personality.

Today, there are even more possibilities as laws and social adjustments take place. What if a certain group suddenly moves for the “professionalization” of media requiring that one must have a degree in a media related course. If that were the case how many of today’s “noisemakers” would be filtered from the “newsmakers”?    

At a corporate or business level, other countries have seen media companies change hands by legislative action on the grounds of public interest and corporate conflict of interest.

In the cartoons, the G-men say “We have ways of making you talk!”.

In the Philippines there can be many ways of making us NOT talk, write or work!