Years ago President Cory’s spokesman Rene
Saguisag said that the media was plural for mediocre. Of course, media
practitioners just pounced on him. But he responded that it was actually a
sympathetic quip – that he sympathized with the daily demands of looking for
stories, angles and deadlines reporters, columnists and editors are subjected
to that they are often forced to manufacture mediocre reports or columns just
to submit something.
But as the years of the wayward media
pressed on, the media that now descends upon us is not just mediocre. Today, in
the 21st century, from the ranks of the men and women who hold the
sacred public trust comes one that is just plain stupid.
Take, for example, Karen Davila. Today she
represents everything that is bad in media. Sure she has the pretty face, the
heart of gold and perhaps even has an adequate amount of gray matter between
her ears. But she is so engrossed with her celebrity that she has forgotten why
she has her microphone by her lips and cameras trained at her to start with.
Watch her on TV as she delivers her spiel
with conviction. She looks straight into the camera and tells her story.
Then listen to her on radio, commentator
par excellence, having something to say on any relevant topic that impact
dreary lives of the masses. She sounds as confident, assertive and
authoritative as she does on her TV newscasts and public affairs shows.
The difference: she is a noisy gong on
radio, lacking the benefit of a script put together by a team of producers,
writers and stringers who do the research, check the facts and tie it all up in
a neat package as it is on TV.
On radio she is a screaming banshee. A
unguided and misguided missile. Karen
Davila is dangerous.
A case in point, not the most recent but
clearly among the most dangerous: a couple of weeks back Karen daresd to
discuss election automation. With much power and authority she declared that
the automation of the 2010 May elections will be a failure because she didn’t
understand it. She went on to assert that it should employ machines like the
banks’ATMs where you would just push buttons on a keypad or screen since most
Filipinos know how to work ATMs.
Further, Karen continued her tirade (voice
level up) about what the ballot was all about, if pencils will be used for
shading, and what will happen if you make a mistake and you can’t have
erasures. In attempting intelligence she further insisted on the error of the
automation science because from her time and motion analysis the precinct will
not be able to accommodate all its voters, each voter spending over 10 minutes
from getting the ballot, to voting to casting it into the PCOS machine (yes
Karen, that’s what they are called).
This wouldn’t be too bad, except that her
ranting and raving was about more than a year late when the automation law was
being crafted and the technology to be used being debated.
The question that popped into the listeners
mind was: where has she been all this time? This is a time that even the
Sexbomb Dancers know what to do on election day… I repeat: THE SEXBOMB DANCERS!
Is Karen so loyal to being a Kapamilya that she closes her eyes and ears to
anything Kapuso like the Bilog na Itlog music video – one which is played
constantly on radio, TV and the internet, albeit on a rival network?
Obviously Karen has been busy, too, to
listen to the TV Patrol and Ako Ang Simula reports where she is an anchor.
Perhaps touching up make-up between takes shuts down your auditory and visual
functions, if not your brain altogether.
The reply to Karen’s ranting and raving, of
course was that black markers are used, not pencils, and had she done a little
due diligence into past elections she would have found erasures or mistakes on
ballots have never been allowed even during the old manual system of writing
down votes. As for her time and motion analysis, perhaps it would have been be
good for her to recall that people vote in the polling places (classrooms,
mostly) ten and sometimes 20 at a time. Not one by one. The only time you line up
is when you get your ballot from the teacher and when you drop it into the box
or, in this case, feed it into the PCOS machine. This takes a few second to a
couple of minutes.
Many texters – regular features in these
radio shows – sent messages correcting Karen and providing the correct
information. Did she appreciate it? No, and in fact castigated them because, as
she said, it was her work as a journalist to bring up these questions. “Oh,
dear,” as my Lola used to say. “Maganda ka pa naman.”
Karen is lucky her co-anchor Vic Lima is a
gentleman… nay, a “Noble Savage” (as old English lit put it) or in our Filipino
realm: “maginoo pero medyo bastos.”
Vic pretended to agree with Karen’s ranting
and raving, but injecting some corrections ever so gently at times and jokingly
with nervous laughter at others. Like in the way he pointed out that he doubted
that many Filipinos would find using ATMs as second nature – sa mga taga bundok
kaya?
Vic lets Karen have her way, but you hear
his discomfort in his voice. And now with DZMM’s teleradyo on cable TV, you see
it in his eyes and the way he moves. You could almost hear him: Shut up already!
The type of news media practice espoused by
Karen is dangerous, by virtue of the equally non discerning listener who lap up
her every word as gospel truth. Most dangerous of all, she is setting the trend
for many aspiring broadcasters and journalists who want to achieve her
celebrity, who think that winging it so long as you’re pretty and desirable
will carry the day, and opinion and commentary without the due diligence and
responsible study can be dispensed with.
No comments:
Post a Comment