“The sun in your Eyes
Made some of the lies worth believing”
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What’s the difference between William Esposo of the Philippine Star writing about Noynoy Aquino and a 13 year old girl at a Justin Beiber concert. One is a high pitched shrieking bundle of nerves who cries and screams at the mere suggestion of their idol, the other is a teenager. I fully expect 13 year old girls to inundate GRP at any moment not wanting to be compared to Esposo.
To both my readers who actually pay attention, you might be getting deja vu right now. I brought up Mr. Esposo here. In it I describe local journalists fawning over Noynoy and how wrong that is for you and me. Esposo’s recent defense of   RA 10175 laced with BS Aquino lavishing just begged for some scrutiny since nobody but Momblogger were waving any red flags.
Since The Philippine Star won’t warn you or put any disclaimers on Esposo let your friendly neighborhood Gogs do it. Inquirer is proud of their Fearless Views and they are proud of their Conrado ‘Noynoy is Aragorn‘ De Quiros    . If De Quiros is fearless about anything it is about being seen as a grossly compromised scribe by people who know better. That’s the thing with commercial mass media, at the risk of sounding Marxist the bigger the audience the more tempting it is to doctor their message. The only way to combat misinformation is through information and put things in proper context. Then again this is the Philippines where more people care about that Gundam robot dance craze than getting informed.
I highly recommend reading the Society of Professional Journalists Code Of Ethics. I don’t know it by heart but even with a rudimentary understanding of the principles of true journalism I know coverage here is so fundamentally wrong.  Events like the unfortunate August 23 2010 Hostage incident     gave me an epiphany. That KSP is the root of all evil. Our reporters for these big events are more ambulance chasers than they are journalists. Details in my blog.
The aforementioned Code of Ethics are not laws however or even licensing requirements. They are just guidelines to ensure proper public service. You can make the argument that since when has any institution in this country rendered proper public service. Then goes to follow that news outlets are just following the lead of any other institution here in failing the public. Proud to be PINOY!!!!!!!
Ideally a news outlet should comply these guidelines but this is the land of the Jeepney Driver mentality:
Act Independently
Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know.Journalists should:
—Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
— Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
— Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
— Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
— Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
— Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
— Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; avoid bidding for news.
Let’s take the first three.
   “Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
— Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
— Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment. ” –
Noynoy takes time out of his “busy” presidential schedule and supports the book launch of Mr.Esposo. Do you really think Esposo will ever be critical of Noynoy? Not that he ever has in the past to my knowledge but the culture of conflict of interest as far as Noynoy is concerned has always been on display for all to see. The Grace Padaca episode  just hammers home my perception that Noynoy damns all protocol and procedure like the way a spoiled child damns all efforts to disclipline them. Unfortunately the public and the press (who represent the public) are playing the role of enabler parents.
“Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.”
That’s what the code says. This is Esposo’s idea of holding Noynoy accountable “We have no such worries with President Benigno S. Aquino III (P-Noy) because he would not defile the memory of his father and mother by resorting to something oppressive or repressive.” Two years into Noynoy’s term that has seen him make a mockery of Chinese tourists being killed  , butchering legal procedure on his Captain Ahab type obsession  , giving the nation a reason to make a word to describe his perceived inactivity  and inflicting his trademark disorganization on the   Scarborough Shoal Crisis. Esposo assured us October 18 2012 that Noynoy will do his parents proud and their names will not be defiled. Does he not read his own newspaper?  Months before the May 2010 election I ran across this blog  of an ordinary individual in full support of Noynoy Aquino. I found it naive at the time. Compare it with Esposo’s take on Noynoy two and a half years later and that’s with the advantage of hindsight. Esposo is obviously showing less objectivity towards Noynoy than Allan Bantiles   showed towards Jaime Garcia. I read that piece and three words come to mind “Get A Room“. This guy is supposed to be credible??
Esposo said “I don’t buy the usual line of my media colleagues that RA 10175 will have a chilling effect.” What he is saying all those people that protested October 9 2012 and succeeded in getting a temporary restraining order wasted their time. Is Esposo in tune with reality or is he picking petals off a daisy saying “Noy Loves Me , Noy Loves Me Not,  Noy Loves Me , Noy Loves Me Not….”
“E-martial law – that’s how the hysterical objectors called RA 10175. In their hysteria they demonstrated their fears that are mostly based on imagined curtailment of press freedom “. So he accuses people of getting hysterical. No where in his editorial that Esposo even graze the fact that many senators claimed the libel portion was snuck in.   . On the subject of “imagined curtailment”    Esposo has a very different view from  JJ Disini of the UP College of Law   who describes the possibility of website take down. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before in this regime.   Esposo in trying to make a case for over reaction never once touched on the possible skullduggery that might have occured in getting the law passed. All throughout Esposo’s editorial if you took out Noynoy’s name and inserted  Pedro Calungsod   and you took out Esposo’s byline and put in the name of Gaudencio Rosales  you might not even suspect anything was up for a few minutes.
This is still a free country as of now and you are welcome to believe I am being crab or negative or ingit or whatever childish adjective. Alternatively you might think by educating you of what can be then maybe a few of us can expect better news coverage. A third group will think of me as a dreamer.
Basketball is king in the Philippines and it is in that arena where I take a real life example of how the appearance of a conflict of interest scenario can work and did work. I took this from one of the best selling sports books of all time A Season On The Brink by John Feinstein. Your typical pinoy for all their basketball tunnel vision only knows two American coaches: Phil Jackson and Pat Riley. They consider Erik Spoelstra a pinoy even if they can’t get into a conversation with him. So don’t be kicking yourself if you don’t know Bobby Knight.
Sitting near Hammel during an Indiana game was worth the price of admission in itself. Hammel had missed exactly two games in Knight’s fifteen seasons at Indiana. Although he had not graduated from the school, he was about as loyal to it as any alumnus could be. This was especially true in the case of his relationship with Knight.
They were an interesting couple, Knight and Hammel. The writer was four years older than the coach and was as gentle as the coach was vitriolic. Even though other writers knew how close the two were, Hammel was rarely disparaged for this relationship in a business where this kind of relationship is always frowned upon.
Part of the reason for their tolerance was the simple understanding that no sports editor in Bloomington could survive if he was ever cut off from the Indiana basketball team. If you can’t cover that which interests your readers more than anything else, you aren’t going to be   valuable to the paper for very long. And everyone who knows Knight at all knows that one is not allowed to be neutral in a relationship with him. You are either for us or against us. Hammel, whose sympathies were bound to lie with Indiana and Knight in most cases anyway, had made the decision years ago that he was with Knight.
The other reason few people disparaged Hammel was Hammel. Not only was his basketball knowledge respected but he was generally considered a true gentleman in a business often sorely lacking in them. Some hometown writer allow their prejudices to affect what they write about other teams. Hammel never did that. He wasn’t about to attack Knight, but he didn’t run around attacking other people unfairly either.
Hammel is a good newspaperman. He is one of those people who can write the entire paper—his prolificness is legendary—lay it out and write all the headlines if necessary.Â
So the Knight/ Hammel story suggests that the tightrope between friendship and covering a subject fairly can be done. The problem is Bob Hammel was very very good at his job. Basketball though important to some is not as important as covering the land’s highest elected official. I think I can make the case that William Esposo is not very very good at his job.
William Esposo is a bona fide Noynoy apologist and lacks any kind of discretion on the issue to form a critical opinion. His drooling over Noynoy makes me wants to “wreck a chair ” in a specific location . In the words of John Lennon you may say I’m a dreamer to wish the Philippines adopt practices for proper journalist ethics, but I’m not the only one. I hope some day you will join us, William Esposo and the world will be as one. Is that libel?
Putting a very sharp needle into the balloon known as Pinoy Pride since 2012.
Badly written propaganda only makes you a ‘brown noser’, not a journalist.
Fortunately no-one takes esposo seriously. One of yesterdays failed marketing men desperate to try and make money any which way and get free lunches. pathetic.
Now that you mention it. I did not stress too much Star’s share of the blame here. In the eyes of the public his association with Phil Star gives him the lion’s share of the credibility.
Gogs
“I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.†— Justice Holmes, dissenting, Abrams v. U.S. (1919)
http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/250/616/case.html
“[I]f there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate.†— Justice Holmes, dissenting, U.S. v. Schwimmer (1929)
http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/279/644/case.html
Esposo is, of course, a columnist, NOT a news reporter, of Philippine Star; hence, whatever “opinion” (“that we loatheâ€) he writes in his newspaper column or commentary is, I think, still part of “the public discussion of public issues†– an activity protected by the command: “No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech …â€
Anyway,there are term limits. And in less than four years, the fixed 6-year term of the puppy Esposo loves so dearly will come to an end.
Yes he is there for his opinion but it is so slanted considering premise of the Star but lots of examples of that . We have right to dissect his opinion. As of now anyway.
Gogs, you da man……
Thanks Bill. I will store up the feel goods now before LA702 and JONAS log in and come in guns blazing.
No problem. I got your back. lol
The ways Esposo admires and GMA abhors PNoy is turning to a classic battle of wheelchair pushing on credibility.
You ain’t see nothing yet on Billy the kid(ding aside)
Wait until Binay runs for president.
He he he
Maybe Esposo, is being paid a good pay by Aquino. Nobody does somehing for free…Journalism in the Philippines is corrupted. Writers, media people are for sales….they even become politicians…
I hope everyone gets my point that Esposo has no shame.
Billy was awarded a presidential medal by PNoy. That was the payback for licking loyalty.
Is it KA Medal of Honor? not named after the circus soleil headliner at MGM Vegas.
He he he
Corrupted by Gloria. Pansinin nyo, walang may gustong journalist kay Gloria.
Corrupted by aquino kaya puro papuri lang ang sinusulat para sa isang inutil na lider na katulad ni aquino.
LOL! sinabi mo pa!
And when does Gloria had friends with the biased media? All I know that the Aquino-Cojuangco clan are friends w/ ABS-CBN, etc. so your post is EPIC FAIL.
Bayan Patroller/ Fishball
Speaking of no shame. You Noynoy diehards are exactly that. Assume all of the pinoys have no brains or discretion.
Some of them yes but not all. You wouldn’t be here if not for Malacanang Communications Group . Our tax money wasted. Just wasted . How does it feel working for two retards? The Truth Minister and the bald spoiled one?
Any relation to Joe Esposito, best known for his association with Elvis Presley for whom he served as road manager and bodyguard beginning in 1960 until the King’s passing?
Paul Lind , You have him confused with former New York Ranger Phil Esposito.
William Esposo? Just a BS Aquino apologist and propagandist. I don’t even bother to read what he writes.
Many have said true. Many still believe him, once in a while its good to check up on his disillisionment level , break it down so others who research on him can get counter points to what opinions he is spewing. And in my case have some fun with somebody so proud to be a buttboy to the bispectacled bewildered boistrous one.
But….but. who is whoms buttboy????
Who is pitching and who is catching? Let me remind you Sir, this is a family blog. (grins)
Your Chair Wrecker and his PDI counterpart de Quiros are sycophants of BS Aquino’s administration; NOT ONCE have I seen them, in their centrally-located columns, criticize any aspect of this administration.
And Esposo is worse. There was a time back during the 2010 campaign when candidate Aquino was against the RH bill; Esposo in his role as sycophant called the CBCP “angels.” Now that the president is sort of for it, he now calls the bishops “foppy old men.” If there’s a Tagalog term for “douchebag,” then Esposo would be it.
Midway. Once again the administration and their sympathizers just assume all of us are brain dead. For those of us who have not been lobotomized, they produce the libel portion of the Cybercrime Bill.
Ed,
I guess with the local newspapers their idea of balanced news is that they have both apologist and dissenter among their columnists, even if the numbers are totally skewed.
Esposo, however, is just plain annoying and nonsensical most of the time.
@ Gogs
You can throw away that useless “journalists creed” out the window because in the real world, journalists whether broadcast, print or blog are guided by the same nefarious principle, and that is greed. Journalism, religion and politics I would say are professions that bears a striking resemblance to prostitution. The only difference between you, your people at GRP and Esposo is that Esposo got to the “cash cow first” and you all feel bad about it.
Hippocrates said and I quote: There are infact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge…the latter ignorance.
LA 702, So you believe that GRP writers are trying to evolve to where Esposo is now like some corrupt pyramid scheme? Then why in the name of Bemby are you here? Already planning the next blog and I will refer to Tony Soprano again. Just for your pleasure. Sorry I used Bobby Knight this time. A name that did not seem to provoke a complaint out of you. Maybe because it was relevant. About throwing out the window, I explained myself there why its not part of the framework here, because many things don’t work for the common person. The disparity in cognitive skills between the ruling class and the masses is almost as wide a gulf between GRP contributors and the hecklers. Regardless of what you might say or think, none of us here are looking for a cash windfall by writing about the Sopranos nor are we lamenting an opportunity lost. Although if I can annoy you and Jonas that is definitely a perk . Fishball can’t be annoyed because Fishball is a copy paste monster. Fishball is like Lito Lapid, does no reading. Whatever annoys you and your soul mate Jonas about GRP is not going to stop anytime soon but it’s your choice to be here. You have so many choices on the Internet including midget wrestling I have no idea why you guys are here. I know it’s for attention but to get attention from people whose ideology you despise?
Reminds me of these articles about how moronic esposo is:
http://getrealphilippines.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/exposing_esposo
http://correctphilippines.org/tables_and_ladders
Thank you domo. Or is that redundant?
With apologies to original dead parrot sketch by
monty python
William m esposo
‘he’s not writing’!
he’s sold out!
This journalist is no more!
he has ceased to be – honest!
he’s exposed and gone to meet his Boss!
he’s a stiff! Bereft of more lies,
he rests in pesos!
If you hadn’t nailed him to the keyboard he’d
be pushing out the lies!
It’s metabolic processes are now history!
he’s off the page!
he’s kicked the chair,
he’s wrecked the bucket he’s manure – for the flowers
he’s shuffled off his moral coil,
run down the flag and
joined the bleedin’ choir
Unholy!!
THIS IS AN EX-JOURNALIST!!
Excellent. And you ensured you did not pull a Sotto.
i think it’s ganggnam dance hehe :-D. gundam is the robot gogs.
sounds like the guy is on payroll. or probably in a year or two would be like bam. running for elections. after all, esposo is a good pet.
Howdy! This post could not be written any better! Looking through this article reminds me of my previous roommate! He always kept preaching about this. I’ll send this post to him. Fairly certain he will have a great read. I appreciate you for sharing!
William,
What I find funny is when you Google “William Esposo Noynoy Aquino” you get this piece even before you get Esposo’s column.
RIP William Esposo.
Read the Philippine Star Story
I was like FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU