Once, while I was browsing the internet, I came across an online dictionary site. I read something that somehow thumped me. The Oxford American Dictionary's definition of Journalism is: "the activity or profession of writing for newspapers or magazines or of broadcasting news on radio or television." Although true, the definition is so broad and doesn't even begin to address the social, cultural and political aspects of Journalism. And that is, our Fourth Estate. Aside from the three branches of government which are executive, legislative and judiciary, Journalism or Media has become its fourth member.
Basically I believe that Journalism doesn't have a concrete definition, away from what the dictionary says. Sometimes it requires people to put aside their own personal beliefs for the sake of fair reporting for the public. Sometimes it requires cutting certain parts of a story out and pleasing your editor much just to get your byline in the paper. It’s a balance that every individual has to find. Finding said balance is a sensitive art which is why journalists are so taboo these days.
In my perspective, Journalism requires the ability to go out in public and spend extended periods of time talking to complete strangers as well as the ability to sit alone for hours and write and rewrite something until your eyes start bleeding and the words don't make sense anymore. As given the title of “Fourth Estate”, requisites journalists to not just breathe as how I view journalism but even go beyond the boundaries. These boundaries are the fences a media man needs to hurdle in order to get into the bacon and serve it even if it’s not hot but at least with the cook’s consent and with utmost palatability to the opened mouths of hungry countrymen.
As a prominent and broadcasting company’s slogan goes, “In the service of the Filipino people”, it completely defines media or journalism as the fourth branch of the land. It is as saying that they exist for their fellow countrymen. Thus, the essence of their job is to provide the people with whatever they need but with qualifications, just like what the other three branches are supposed to do. Yes. There is no question to how it should be defined; rather it is on how they are realizing it and the aftermath of the steps they take. Let us take a closer look in to that.
We can cite an instance in the Philippine setting. In the middle of the most crucial political campaign in 2010 after almost a decade of the predecessor, different levels of noise have sprung from here and there and in every corner of the land. One of the major issues was the contentious reports of the leading candidate for the presidency at that time, who is now as well all know, the republic’s president, Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III. It’s a potentially explosive document given to ABS-CBN by a source from the Nacionalista Party. It was a report allegedly done by Ateneo’s Psychology Department on Sen. Benigno Aquino III signed by Fr. Carmelo Caluag.
On that instant, the former News and Public Affairs Head of the said TV station, Maria Ressa was in dilemma. On the morning of Thursday, April 8, she called a meeting of their top editorial minds to discuss the matter. According to what she, her self, has written as her report, they have been in a tough deliberation. They thought that if it be true, it could spell the end of Sen. Aquino’s campaign. But if they didn’t pursue the story, they could have given the source reason to say media people are biased. If it really did, they could potentially wade into a knot of ethical issues dealing with the mental health of the frontrunner for the presidency.
Whether it was factual or not, they still decided to do the story and air it in the coming days. They didn’t see any rush approaching because they said they thought of their source as giving them a vanguard. But it turns out proving that it was a false assumption. A short time later, their news team received the same document from another source connected to the Nacionalista Party, which Sen. Manny Villar is the standard bearer, who is at the same time has the closest fight in surveys with Sen. Aquino III.
In the first hour of the afternoon, they received the first of a series of email messages asking them if the document is authentic. That was particularly interesting because it came from a multilateral financial establishment. When their news team head, Ressa, scrolled down, it had been forwarded numerous times, already spreading virally on email. Around 2:30 pm, they received text messages giving potentially destructive information about Sen. Aquino’s mental health under this heading “A1 Info – Psychiatric Evaluation Form of Benigno Aquino III.”
Is it true? Given how fast it was spreading, they rushed to validate. They believed it best to go to the two people named in the document: the subject, Sen Aquino, and the signatory, Fr. Carmelo “Tito” Caluag. They believed that if they had gone to others first, they may alert those involved and trigger an organized reaction. So, she called Fr. Caluag, and the priest denied the report, saying he wasn’t a psychologist or psychiatrist and that his signature was lifted from other documents.
Ces Orena-Drilon, one of ABS-CBN news people, who was on the campaign trail with Sen. Aquino, showed him the document. She said, Sen. Aquino’s initial reaction was to laugh. He spoke openly - no PR spin, no consultations - and denied the document’s authenticity.
At that point, TV Patrol World was about to start. It was a stretch to make it to air, but they did - an anchor read followed by a live report from Drilon. They outlined the events of the day, key points of the three-page report circulating on email and text, and – most importantly - the denials of Fr. Caluag and Sen. Aquino.
It was the first public denial of a salacious document masquerading as fact. By disclosing their sources without naming names, they gave their viewers a glimpse of what was going on behind the scenes. That is why that story is important. Events are never isolated so context defines the story’s value.
Three days earlier, the Nacionalista Party used the word “topak” to describe Aquino. “Ano yung TOPAK ni Noynoy? Ito po yung Trapo, Oportunista at Kamaganak Inc na pumapaligid kay Noynoy Aquino,” said Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, secretary-general of the Nacionalista Party. This statement echoed earlier remarks by Villar spokesman Gilbert Remulla on ANC, the cable news channel of ABS-CBN.
The context of that fake document story seems to show an NP campaign to question Sen. Aquino’s mental health, something Sen. Manuel Villar publicly did on DZMM on Saturday, April 10. The Nacionalista Party denied they gave the documents to ABS-CBN and challenged their news team to name their sources. They publicly declared that the station is biased for Sen. Aquino.
Yet, it was noted that before that, party representatives thanked ABS-CBN news team for airing their exclusive video of Baby James Yap saying "Villar" at a campaign rally of about 15,000 people. That video has since been replayed by another network and spread online by Sen. Villar’s supporters. Airing that video ruffled feathers within the Liberal Party and the network. Nacionalista Party representatives also thanked them for disclosing that sources from the Liberal party gave ABS-CBN the documents questioning Sen. Villar’s ad campaign. Although the documents are authentic, the intent to demolish is the same. The Liberal Party also denied giving those documents to ABS-CBN.
According to Maria Ressa, “Frankly, it’s shocking to see such blatant distortions of the truth. Oh, how I wish we could disclose our sources, but those are the standards we live by.”
In other nations, news organizations routinely report on demolition teams and black ops as part of the election landscape. Negative advertising is part of the game. When candidates use this, they are transparent and they accept the risk that it could backfire against them. In our country, candidates prefer to hide behind – and manipulate - journalists.
I have read the re-tell of the entire situation from the write-up of Maria Ressa, herself, in the ABS-CBN website. And one that struck me was her last words, saying, “To the political parties, we do not write stories because we are for or against you. We aim to tell it like it is. After all, how you run your campaigns gives us an idea of how you will run our nation.”
I can infer that Ressa’s team was just enough in the decision they made. They favored Mill’s Utilitarianism. And I suppose they were also of Rawls’ principle on his Veil of Ignorance. But there were just some lapses that their choice put them into a grave spot. The situation where the media network was caught in the middle is one of the many indications that journalists are indeed on the middle of a road. They have a tough job. And that is because; they are the sprinters of the Fourth domain. They can make or break a person and can also do the same with the audience’s views on something or someone.
And so I must say that it would have been better if the first thing they tried so hard to do was to make it sure that the source would defend the document they have sent even at the sake of publicizing their names. As long as the source cannot assure them that they’d stand for it, they should have kept the issue and never even tried to release it. It is for everyone’s safety, the subject, the other persons involved, and even the network per se. With all of the important persons engaged in the situation, the numbers of the proven innocents who deserve peace, outweigh the number of name/s of the source who hid himself/herself/themselves. But since they published it even with inadequate details, it also drew them nearer to the cliff.
On another note, I have also noticed one more thing with media. All of the other recent events being reported on television, radio and presented in newspapers have shown how the media can easily rally the Filipino. From shamelessly riches and unexplainable wealth of government officials even of barangay officers to the YouTube sensations and videos with top hits and most views, the media can build up or bring down celebrities and politicians while forever attempting to expose the truth, no matter how ugly, for all to see. Unfortunately, media tends to focus on the moment and then moves on when other events, worthy of its attention, arise. Many important events have been pushed aside by the more sensational.
For generations we have accepted “Journalism” as a vital element of democracy. It has been known as The Fourth Estate because it came to represent a counterbalance to the executive, legislature and judiciary.
This fourth leg providing balance in our society was given birth through a network of independent single page papers distributed by hand that evolved over two centuries to include radio and television. Its current materialization, however, no longer plays the role of independent pillar supporting the social triumph that is democracy.
The Fourth Estate brought us news, presented opinions and often played the role of guardian, even becoming an attack dog, when it found abuse of power in one of the three branches of government. We did not suppose complete objectivity, which would have been too much to ask of fellow human beings, but we expected truth, and at the very least we demanded a drought of ideological paddling of particular political creeds.
As what I have mostly read of, the past twenty years saw vast consolidations occur at alarming rates throughout the corporate landscape, to an extent that the term, “too big to fail,” became a tolerable terminology. Through repetition, the phrase evolved into an affirmation, and the insanity of its meaning escaped intrusive common sense.
These consolidations inevitably affected all areas of media and resulted in the formation of gigantic entertainment and culture empires with some subsidiaries masquerading as news companies. In today’s media sovereignties, the term, “journalism,” no longer applies to any performance or occupation preoccupying their employees. Their commissions have dissolved into endeavors that would more appropriately be called, “celebrity reporting.” The writers and talking heads have themselves become celebrities, and the objects of their reports are celebrities created by the media conglomerates. The “star” making machines are profitable devices for their masters.
Whether the celebrities are the Hollywood version, the corporate executive edition or the latest political rendition, the pandering dialogue is neither inquisitive nor analytical. Whether addressing business or politics, our media has become boringly consistent and vacuous as if every news program or publication was its own adaptation of People magazine.
And so, we remain passively entertained, settled on the sidelines, as our lives become altered by special interests. We wish we had the time to become active participants, but we have our own tasks, at school, outside, at home and even for ourselves, sometimes 2 or 3 or even more than that and all of these stipulate attention. We wish members of the media would be more objective, and intermittently root out some of the schemes draining off the country’s men.
“Great power comes with great responsibilities”, as the fictional man in red skinny suit and has a powerful supply of web inside his hands have popularized. In the case of journalists, the power vested on them as the fourth estate with full provision of the law with freedom of expression, speech and the like also have duties which are needed to be done parallel. So far with what I have learned, I could surmise that they were considerate, in one way or another, of the basic ethical foundations of Kant, Aristotle, Potter, Rawl, Judeo-Christian and Mill. But with various circumstances alongside, their efforts have been overshadowed with how their intentions and image is justified and projected to the public.
Humans as we all are, we cannot meet perfection in any natural or juridical person there is. There is much anticipation of the receivers to journalists. Since they have been drawing their attention and trust to the fourth branch that they suppose to be far different form the other three.
The time has come for the phrase, “too big to succeed,” to take effect, and become deep-rooted in our vocabulary, particularly as it relates to members of The Fourth Estate. We need to clamor for a revamp in every little details of the fourth pillar so indispensable in the sustenance of a healthy democracy.
PASAGUI, TAMARAH YSABELLE M.
AB- COMMUNICATION ARTS 3
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