Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Volume 2, Number 17 June 2 - 8, 2002 Quezon City, Philippines |
COMMENTARY Rage
Against the Regime The
state is running roughshod over the principles that make us human beings, but we
in the media choose to look the other way. To many of us, the antics of
officials engaged in a word war is far more newsworthy than the continuous
assault on our freedom and our basic rights as human beings. By
Carlos H. Conde Bulatlat.com
(The
following is the keynote speech the author delivered at the 31st National
Student Press Congress and the 62nd National Student Press Convention organized
by the College Editors Guild of the Philippines on May 27-June 1, 2002, in Davao
City.) I
am here before you today with a little trepidation, and it's not because an
intelligent audience such as this intimidate me. It's more because I realized
that I could not possibly talk to you today and exhort you to be good campus
journalists without first taking a long, hard look at my profession. My
beef against the mainstream news media is mainly its failure - or is it refusal?
- to lend a voice to the voiceless, to console those who are suffering, to
enlighten those who are in the dark, to liberate the minds of those who are
stuck in the rut of conventional wisdoms, who believe the myths that are being
passed off as truths. Seeking
out the stories that matter - for instance, documenting the various human-rights
abuses in the countryside - is a lonesome task for a journalist these days.
These days, despite the fact that this or that human-rights abuse or this or
that political assassination or this or that political harassment happen with
impunity, we in the mainstream news media are looking the other way. Either
because we are too ignorant to ask the right questions or we have grown
accustomed to the sad reality of the press in this country, which is that, more
and more, it is becoming elitist. More than being elitist - that is, it seeks
only the answers to questions that matter to those who own the media, which is
the elite - the mainstream news media is becoming blinded by the very lies that
it has been heaping on us. In
newsrooms across the country, my fellow journalists are following a routine in
which the plight of the poor, particularly those in the countryside, hardly
figures. At 3 p.m. every day, they sit in their air-conditioned offices,
deciding which myth they would dish out again in tomorrow's edition of their
newspapers. They would shock us with rumors of a coup d'etat or this animal
called Freedom Force. They would bombard us with the never-ending stream of
pathos that marked the event - or a death that the media turned into an event -
that was the death of an actor named Rico Yan. They would force their view of
the world on us without so much as an appreciation of what it is the public
really want. In
the meantime, the elements of a fascistic dispensation continue to wreak havoc,
murdering activists left and right, among them a dear friend, Beng Hernandez,
who had the courage and the wisdom to rage against the regime. Across the
country, the Arroyo administration is terrorizing our people, even as it pays
lip service to the fight against terrorism by allowing itself to be used by the
United States government in a vague but costly - to human rights, to life, to
decency - mission in the southern Philippines. Sadly,
my colleagues - even I, to some extent - are preoccupied with our own business,
pursuing stories that are dictated by a journalistic structure that serve more
the interest of the State and big business. To many of us, wittingly or not, the
death of Beng Hernandez was newsworthy only because she supposedly had a diary.
Hah, a diary! To many of us, the death and the arrest of our Moro brothers all
over Mindanao on the mere suspicion that they are members of the Abu Sayyaf is
newsworthy only because it fits perfectly with what the police has to say - that
all this is part of the campaign against terrorism. The
state is running roughshod over the principles that make us human beings, but we
in the media choose to look the other way. To many of us, the antics of
officials engaged in a word war is far more newsworthy than the continuous
assault on our freedom and our basic rights as human beings. You
are in very interesting and turbulent times. You are now faced with the
challenge of proving once again that, when the mainstream news media fails in
doing its job in reporting the events and the issues that matter to the masses,
it is you who will stand up and show the rest of the world how a little
commitment can go a long way in reinforcing our faith in the power of the
written word. It happened during the Marcos regime. I don't see how it cannot
happen now. By
being excellent at what you do, you can give the mainstream news media the jolt
that it needs, not that I delude myself in thinking that its defects can be
repaired that easily. I am convinced that under the present structure of our
society, a media that serves and protects the interest of the poor is a pipe
dream. You
have so much power in your hand. And I implore you to use that power to
challenge what I think is one of the worst afflictions of the mainstream news
media -- the myth of objectivity that permeates the newsrooms in this country.
This myth only serves to absolve those of us in the mainstream press of our
limitations, if not wrongdoings. Objectivity prevents the mainstream press from
asking tough questions and from forming conclusions out of facts, thinking that
if they do that, they would become less objective and, thus, less effective as
journalists. But
you must agree with me that in a regime that is becoming more and more brutal,
in a society that is more and more unjust, to be "objective" - that is
to say, to report events dispassionately and to merely write down the much
vaunted 5Ws that come invariably from the government - is to help the regime
perpetuate its barbarity. You
have a real power in your hands, and I am not just talking about the fact that
you have what is called a captive audience. The combined circulation of all the
country's newspapers is nothing compared to the sheer number of minds that you
can help open, that you can help free. The commitment to tell the truth to
benefit the masses - that is what you have that the mainstream news media has
taken for granted in its pursuit for profit and in fulfilling its role as a mere
propaganda tool by those in power. But
you cannot fulfill your role as journalists if you stay within the confines of
your schools. As such, you have to intensify your struggle against the
repressive structures within the schools that you come from. You have to fight
campus-press repression. You have to stand up against the many anti-student
policies and actions of school administrations. You have to go out and see and smell and feel the suffering of our people. You have to witness for yourself how the State has degenerated into a killing machine. As journalists, as chroniclers of the struggle of the masses for genuine freedom, nothing less is expected of you. We want to know what you think of this article.
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