Legit news crew vs. social media

Here’s a bit of history. In the early 1970’s, Cebu City was the competing ground of television companies. There were Channel 3 of the Alto Broadcasting System-Chronicle Broadcasting Network (ABS-CBN), Channel 7 of the Republic Broadcasting System (RBS), Channel 9 of the Kanlaon Broadcasting System (KBS) and Channel 13 of the Intercontinental Broadcasting Corp. (IBC). After briefly working with three radio stations, I had the privilege to be a 20-year-old part of the workforce of Channel 5 which, at that time, was owned and operated by the Associated Broadcasting Corp. Our radio and television studios were located at the top of Rajah Hotel.

ABC R/TV 5 was the broadcast part of the Roces group of companies which published the leading national paper The Manila Times. We took pride in showing the Million Dollar Movies (MDM) because poll surveys also rated the program solid at the top. In one unexpected incident, Mr. Raymond “Bunny” Arville, our Manileño manager, received a call from Senator Sergio Osmeña Jr. The lawmaker missed the showing of a particular MDM film (sorry, I can no longer remember the title of the movie) and wished to see it. Sir Bunny quickly assembled a team, got our audio-video equipment and went to the senator’s home to run the film to the extremely-grateful Cebuano legislator.

With Presidential Proclamation No. 1081, dated September 21, 1972, President Ferdinand E. Marcos, placed the Philippines under martial law and closed all TV companies, Channel 5 included. The closure of my employer’s station came just a month after I was promoted. It was sad to lose a good-paying job although I realized later that it allowed me to focus on my Law studies.

We were proud of the high ratings of Channel 5’s The Big News. It was hosted by the country’s leading newscasters at the time --Jose Mari Velez, Duds Rivera, and Bong Lapira. The news they reported was as objective and factual as the strictest editor’s scalpel would allow. Their reliability was never questioned. They only reported the truth based on verifiable facts. This modern term “fake news” did not exist. Slanting was never permitted nor allowed. That was how The Big News became the standard of impeccable news reporting.

I speak today of the reliability and trustworthiness of my former employer’s news team in contrast to some social media posting that carried worrisome reports on the health of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. While social media can never be compared to legit news establishments, I have to raise an alarm that we should subject Facebook posts to fact checking because the latter tend to be less reliable. Indeed, the recent shocking posts about President Marcos were convincing because they appeared replete with such details as a person, purported to be the president, being hurriedly wheeled to an ambulance and an eventual hospital room assigned to the sick man.

April 9 is a public holiday. On this day, we commemorate the heroism of Filipino soldiers during World War II. Always, the venue of this celebration is Mt. Samat and almost always, the president leads this event. It was thus that Channel 5, like all other networks, sent a team to cover the commemoration. As expected, President Marcos was there with government officials and leading private citizens and his speech was recorded.

How then should we consider the social media posts that reported the president being hospitalized? Channel 5’s new generation of reporters Ed Lingao, Maeanne Los Baños, and Rhod Michael Adalid replayed the Araw ng Kagitinan speech of the president as they revealed that they also sent a team to verify the reported hospitalization of the president. Accordingly, their reportorial crew found the social media accounts to be fake! I tend to believe still the trustworthiness of my former employer.