Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

Yesterday, my partner forwarded to me an email invitation from the BBC World Service to participate in their programme about “freedom of the press” for Press Freedom Day. So I sent an email to their “World Have Your Say” correspondent Fiona Crack saying I’d be interested in commenting on the local issue of proposed 100% foreign ownership of media in the Philippines.

Instantly, I got a phone call from Fiona and she asked about the issue of media ownership. Shortly, she gave me three questions that she said would be discussed in the radio programme in 2.5 hours. That meant I’d have to stay up till past 2AM for their call. I obliged.

Of course, the BBC never called back. Since I was the type of person who has had numerous experiences with people (including professionals) who arrive a minimum of 1.5 hours late to a scheduled meeting (or not arriving at all with no notice of cancellation), I wasn’t too upset with what happened. Usually, if a person doesn’t arrive after half to an hour after the set meeting time, I move on to my next agenda. In this case, I gave the BBC about an hour and then I went to bed.

I would’ve been glad to have received an earlier notice that I couldn’t be included in their program, especially from an international highly respected media organization such as the BBC. However, given what happened today, which I truly hope is an isolated incident (or perhaps “engine trouble”), I am not surprised that media is not being taken seriously anymore.

Anyway, the brief phone call was an opportunity to reflect on issues of media that I have always found fascinating. And I did sit down and try to answer the BBC programme’s three questions: 1) is media free? 2) is media under threat? and 3) should journalists be given protection or special treatment?

I told my partner after the phone call that I found the questions rather odd, perhaps biased, since I felt that the questions assumed answers rather than explore issues. Anyway, below are my thought on the questions.

Is media free?

In the Philipppines, media is considered one of the world’s most vibrant, active and free - but what do we mean by free? As the free and opensource community put it, free as in freedom or free as in free beer?

Media in the Philippines, especially television, follows the US model - it is a highly competitive, market-based, profit-oriented private enterprise. So here, media is “free” in the context of a “free market capitalist globalized economy.”

The more socially-sensitive sector of media are those that are marginalized and whose freedoms to demonstrate such social awareness are being curtailed. The PCIJ itself will not let a journalist proceed with reports and investigations on illegal drugs in the Philippines when her life is under threat. Here, media is clearly not free.

Is media under threat?

Yes, the life of many media practitioners in the country is under threat. Reporters without Borders ranks the Philippines third most dangerous place for journalists (after Itaq and Mexico).

But more importantly, media is also under threat by commercialization - most of local TV is garbage entertainment, trivial information and poor news reporting supported by its advertisers and promoters. NBC’s Linda Ellerbee described it beautifully: “Please remember that in TV, the product is not the program; the product is the audience and the consumer of that product is the advertiser.”

Should journalists be given special treatment and protection?

Now this was a very tricky question. My initial knee-jerk reaction was “yes, of course” when I thought of the BBC’s own Alan Johnston who was kidnapped in Gaza over a month ago. But then come to think of it, nobody - media people or what - deserves to be kidnapped in Gaza or anywhere in the world.

This reminds me of a government official here who once commented on the issue of media people being murdered that the danger was all part of their job. Surely, like soldiers or the police, media people are in the frontlines of conflict but unlike soldiers or police, they are non-combatants and don’t carry guns to protect themselves.

The complexity of the situation is when media people are in the “frontlines” of sensitive issues such as drugs, corruption, smuggling and illegal gambling, where the combat zone is the radio broadcaster’s booth where a number of media people have been murdered.

So, should we give media people guns and/or armed guards to protect themselves or give them other forms of special treatment?

It seems a solution but not an intelligent one in terms of a more long-term and socially-sensitive solution. Here, a re-thinking of the relationship between media and the public may be more important areas of solution to the problem.

There is a small public park here in the city where police and secutiry forces have not been installed but instead provisions where made for visible, spacious and open planning of spaces with adequate lighting and a self-policing system for park patrons. The system worked because the public was not alienated by armed guards or threatening public signages and prohibitions, but was rather encouraged and allowed to look after public property and after each other. The public was encouraged to become a genuine community.

The problem of media under threat is general lawlessness, not only in the Philippines but globally. Media’s role is to continue to report more responsibly about this social degenerative disease and to re-evaluate ts relationship with the public. If the media continue to treat the public as products that it creates for advertisers to consume, then such lack of respect can only discourage the kind of media and public environment where a sense of community and responsibility may be established and sustained.

The irony is that now it seems that everybody needs special treatment to be treated as human beings - a situation that media should look into more closely and responsibly.

NB: My partner earlier sent an email to Fiona who just sent a reply that there was indeed “engine trouble” getting connected to callers in the Philippines and Russia that night. The BBC apologized as further attempts by the production crew to contact me earlier failed.

EMail This Post This entry was posted by Fats on Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 1:31 pm and is filed under Wika at Hirap > Media Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.