Not so fast

Not so fast


Updated 11:38pm (Mla time) Jan 16, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service



Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 17, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.


FIRST off, I am not unsympathetic to people complaining about having been victimized by the media. Variously by being depicted in a bad light out of spite, by being reported wrongly, or even by being ignored when they ought not to. That goes even for presidents, former and current. They have every reason to complain. They have every right to complain.

But to applaud the burning of an ABS-CBN van and say that it should serve as a warning to media to refrain from biased reporting, there I draw a very big line. That was how deposed President Joseph Estrada reacted last week to the atrocity. He complained as well about the Inquirer's biased reporting, particularly about his recent trip to Hong Kong.

I leave others to debate the biased reporting, but I confess I was bowled over to read our headline last Wednesday that said, "Estrada makes whoopee in HK." There is a difference between "whooping it up" and "making whoopee." The first means having fun, the second means having sex. At least, since Gus Kahn and Walter Davidson came up with their double entendre on the phrase with their 1927 song, "Makin' Whoopee." The phrase now connotes sexual dalliance.

The song's lyrics go: "Another bride, another June/ Another sunny honeymoon/ Another season, another reason/ For makin' whoopee.... He's washing dishes and baby clothes/ He's so ambitious he even sews/ But don't forget folks/ That's what you get folks, for makin' whoopee.... She sits alone, almost every night/ He doesn't phone; he doesn't write/ He says he's busy, but she says, 'Is he?'/ He's makin' whoopee."

I can imagine that Erap isn't loath to make whoopee in whatever condition he is in, post-operation or post-whatever. But that is not the point. The point is that there's little to suggest Erap was in the throes of it in Hong Kong. After seeing the headline, I scoured the article to find out whom he was making whoopee with. Turns out he was just whooping it up, very probably with carryover taxpayers' money.

I personally sympathized with Susan Roces when she launched a broadside against ABS-CBN last December. If the network believed in its coverage of FPJ during the elections-or non-coverage of him, it virtually shut him out-it should have stuck by its guns. It should have continued to ignore him in death as it did in life. Certainly, it should not have gone on to advertise its abiding friendship for, solidarity with, and faith in the man as he lay in his coffin in Sto. Domingo, laid low-if his loved ones were to be believed-by a dagger the giant network had plunged in his back. It was a little cheeky, and invited trouble.

But in her tirade, Roces did not drive the network away, saying it had no business covering the wake, it was an interloper come to trespass on the dignity of the dead. She did not ask her followers, or those of her husband, to boycott the network. She did not warn the station to shape up, or see things her way, or face the consequences of their refusal. She merely unburdened herself of her oppression after the network itself solicited her own views on life and death. Even in wrath, she looked, well, presidential.

There's nothing presidential in Erap's reaction. I made my position clear on this a long time ago when Erap put the muscle on the Manila Times and the Inquirer for railing at his misrule. The Times he managed to close, the Inquirer he managed to deprive of income from lost advertisement. I said then and I say now that none of the faults of the media may justify coercive action against them by the administration or the opposition, by public officials or various interest groups.

At the very least, that is so because if the media are biased, even more so are the public officials and various interest groups. They proceed from their own agenda. To make them the arbiter of what is fair or unfair in media is to open the floodgates to oppression. I remember that shortly after Erap crowed about what he did to the Manila Times and the Inquirer, several local officials said they too had been victims of the provincial media and were bent on taking similar actions against them. The reign of a bad press is worlds better than the reign of tyranny.

At the very most that is so because the abuse of press freedom is not solved by the removal of press freedom. The media's propensity to sensationalize and to trivialize is not solved by censorship, or worse terrorism. If the opposition can approve of an ABS-CBN van being gutted, on the ground that the network did them a bad turn, so can government, with respect to another media outfit, on the ground that it did them a bad turn. That should spell the end of a free press as we know it.

I agree that the media can often be abusive-I find my day wrecked each time I listen to some TV personalities-but terrorizing them into enlightenment is a cure worse than the disease. Their being led to the path of enlightenment doesn't happen that way. It only makes them more pliant to carrot and stick. Fortunately, the public isn't completely powerless to do anything about media's faults. The nice thing about a free press is that you have a choice. You can always choose to buy another newspaper or switch to another station. Or if you yourself have a burning thought you have to unburden yourself with, you can always unburden it on a newspaper or network that is more hospitable to it.

I've always thought media audiences have a capacity to grow and become more discerning. As evidenced by the way brainless media fare is losing out to more intelligent ones, whether in news or entertainment, in reportage or sitcom. But whether that is so or not, you don't solve abuse by committing a worse one.

You don't produce responsibility that way, you produce anarchy.