One of the most persistent legacies of the 1986 Yellowtard Revolution is the idea that media people are both “heroes” in the fight against and “victims” of oppression and tyranny. Often, the villains in their self-authored tales of victimhood are state armed forces such as the police and the Army. As such, the most iconic photos depicting the “heroism” of media people often involve reporters scurrying around flash points while being chased by mean-looking baton-wielding cops or soldiers.
Who propagates these emotionally-charged images and messaging? Why none other than the very same media organisations who employ these people. This decades-long campaign to promote the hero-worship of an entire industry had been so successful that it had practically become a religion. The lionisation of “media practitioners” was an astounding exercise involving an entire professional community hanging medals on themselves and, more importantly, abusing their access to people’s devices and living rooms to promote their own dishonest industry agenda.
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The media are not really as “free” and “independent” as they’d like us to believe. They behave more like the Roman Catholic Church which, itself, enjoys its own captured audience — its Sunday masses being its primary channel over which it delivers “pastoral letters” and other centrally-crafted messages from its aristocracy. If one will take the time to notice, the media is engaged in delivering the same “suffering and death” of “martyrs” and “saints” narrative preached in churches all over the world. Dishonest people do, indeed, think alike.
The media are not Filipinos’ saviours. Ultimately, when real threats to life, limb, property, and national security emerge, who do we call? That’s right. We don’t call Maria Ressa, Howie Severino, Karen Davila, or John Nery. We call the police and, failing that, the Army.
When police officers and soldiers come to the scene, they aim to take charge of the situation and not simply bait the perpetrators into turning them into victims. Their objective is to neutralise the bad guys and disable their capacity for harm — not turn them into villains for the cameras or fodder for their appeals to emotion (also known as “photojournalism” and “news reporting” respectively).
Like the organised religion they had become, the Media want you to believe they are messiahs and while at it, encourage you to fork out cash to pay for their “services”. A neat scam indeed. It is no wonder that the industry is now suffering a crisis of relevance. Like religion which began its decline when people became more educated, started to think better, and gained access to alternative sources of information, so too is the media industry succumbing to a competition they are ill-equipped or too self-entitled to face.
The only thing left is to step back and watch bemused as an entire industry convulses under the weight of scrutiny brought to bear upon their business practices and professional attitudes by a public growing increasingly skeptical of the value their lot believe they add to society. If the media profession and industry don’t evolve, natural selection will take care of that for them. And that is a change they cannot “report” their way out of.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
sCRATCHING THE CHARTER CHANGE ITCH: wHY AN OPPOSITION vP LENILUTONG LUGAW OF COMOLECT ANDRES BAUTISTA WILL NEVER WORK WELL FOR THE pHILIPPINES PDU30 ERAD ERADICATION AND REHABILITATION AGAINST DRUGS OF MADPNOY ABNOY KULANGKULANG99 CREATOR OF FOUR MILLION PILIPINO ADDICTS, OF SENATONG DEHLIMA.
“Mainstream Media” Journalists are well-protected and have a cushy gig regurgitating propaganda, while Independent Radio Operators or Investigative Journalists who are still dying and their cases going cold, and the fact that some of these hacks compare themselves to the latter while not doing enough for them, is not evident to people who can see through their vainglorious assertion that they’re a class of people who are victims.
I think the problem with our media guys is that they imagine themselves to be like Watergate reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, or My Lai Massacre reporter Seymour Hersh. But in truth, our media fantasists do nothing like the sort. The reporters said above never wanted to unseat or discredit anyone for its own sake; they are only after reporting the truth. Also, none of the named American reproters did anything against the law, such as acquire documents illegally or intrude into places they shouldn’t. Meanwhile, our own media believes any illegal means is justified so long as the one they’re trying to ruin is “evil”… because their politician employers told them to (media ownship by politicians is something Vera Files itself contributed to reporting about, but excluded themselves from).
During the Aquino era, the Media was the propaganda machine of the Aquinos…media people put themselves, as heroes of the “Peoples 1986 EDSA revolution (1986 EDSA coup d’ etat)” and showed themselves, as the ” sole bearers of truth”…they discredited anybody who were against the Aquinos and their cahoots…they constantly demonize Marcos and his Martial Law era…
The Media was nothing, but an “indoctrination tool” by the Aquinos and any politician who can pay them the right amount of money…
Unfortunately, with the advent of Social Media, social media warriors, bloggers, tweeters, and all kinds of “generic media people”…the information outlets , became a “level playing field”…the Aquinos put also social media outlets , like Rappler.com, Blogwatch, etc…to counter those who are against them, but most of our readers became wiser…
People found out the truth about these “prostituted media people”…they cannot hide from their being biased, and paid political outlets, anymore…so their credibilities and relevance, are now in jeopardy.
It seems, these prostituted media people, are now on the ” edge of extinction”…soon their importance will be no more on our information outlets !
During the Aquino era, the Media was the propaganda machine of the Santa Cory Aquinos…media people put themselves, as heroes of the “Peoples 1986 EDSA revolution (1986 EDSA coup d’ etat)” and showed themselves, as the ” sole bearers of truth”…they discredited anybody who were against the Aquinos and their cahoots…they constantly demonize Apo lakay Marcos and his Masagana99 Martial Law era…
I like Manila Times than any other media.
Media people broadcasting the “fact” they are heroes is like Bill the high school bully boldly claiming he’s sure to go to heaven when he dies coz he’s wearing a shirt with “Geniune Calvinist Baptist” in bold print with a foot note “Partial Preterist” on the eschatological end.
Claims are just claims. It’s those self-made billionaire guys like Elon, Jeff and Jack who can really respond to the Goodings call to “show me the money”.
If these media folks are real heroes, why don’t they take on the challenge to go up and measure Taal’s temperature with a thermometer and shout out the reading from the tip of the crater – then Arduino tinker kit enthusiasts will probably get all inspired to go into IoT mode.
Gee, Noynoy’s hair is really smelling terrific these days. Btw, whoever finds the cure to balding will likely get the next Nobel prize – to be awarded by no less than an English prince. What’s with all this Megxit episode anyway? Probably just a distraction from Iran’s missile, Trump’s impeachment, and PH bad news (our No.1 export commodity).