Is media as adversary of the government?

In the book Journalism for Filipinos, Alito Malinao writes that the media is often labeled as "adversarial" to the government, and frequently criticized for being biased by stressing the bad news over the good news.

This incessant negativism that people read and watch creates a brainwashing effect, remarked lawyer Emil Jurado in his column "To the Point" in the Manila Standard issue last August 23.

Jurado believes this is the reason for the cynicism and skepticism people feel toward what the country's leaders say or do.

"Many of our political and economic problems have been due to media's propensity to report the bad and negative news, making the people say that there's no longer hope for the country," Jurado wrote.

But this so-called propensity of media to report the bad news and its so-called brainwashing effect are not true at all, The FREEMAN copy editor Rolex A. Elmido disagrees.

The media are not bearers of doom with the intention to inflict harm or trauma to the readers, says Elmido. "They are merely journals and the contents are not premeditated to ruin others."

Cherry Ann Lim, managing editor of Sun.Star Cebu's special pages and features, agrees saying that reporters do not make the news. "They merely chronicle the events of the day and report what happened."

The press, Lim says, is just a mirror that reflects what is happening in society. But you cannot blame the mirror for the ugliness you read or see, she says as she comments that this issue between the government and the press will be around for a very long time.

"It's not being adversary. It's media activism lang siguro," says prosecutor Maria Luisa Ratilla-Buenaventura during an interview in her office at the Palace of Justice.

Media is active in checking the society especially the conduct of its public officials and agencies. She clarified however that not all public officials are crooked in their dealings. "But there are really nosy reporters," Buenaventura says.

But Sun.Star Cebu senior reporter Karlon Rama believes that the nature of media is neither of an activist nor of an adversary. Media do not record the events of the day to put someone down, or to boost someone else's ego. "We do what we do because it's our duty and not because we have agendas," he says.

A media person who thinks that media is "adversarial" is programming himself to see only the bad. Rama explains this is like putting a screen to sieve what you see, and the journalist loses objectivity.

The press, however, has to be adversarial in nature because it has a watchdog function, explains Malinao.

"It has to report without fear or favor the shenanigans in government: abuses or malpractice of public officials and how funds are being spent," Malinao writes. Media thus serve as the fourth estate that "fiscalizes" over the three branches of government.

But one could be a watchdog without making an enemy out of the entity one is keeping an eye on, Lim says contending that adversarial is too strong a word to describe media.

Elmido, for his part, believes "adversarial" is just a general interpretation by those who feel they are given bad publicity.

"Public officials should not be onion-skinned," says Elmido. If they did not do anything wrong, then they have nothing to fear or they do not have to feel guilty, he says.

Love-Hate Relationship

The media and the government in our country are like a couple entangled in marital problems. They are the typical husband and wife who quarrel, then reconcile, only to start the fight again, says Elmido.

The relationship between media and government might seem irreconcilable, but the occasional nagging could be a sign of a healthy relationship to amend some things for the better. But it could also be for the worse, he says.

Elmido says there is no perfect or faultless relationship. A middle ground may be achieved somehow but still it could not make the relationship perfect. These two entities may fight bitterly but Elmido believes they don't have the appetite yet to sever their ties forever.

The interpretation that media is a foe can be traced back to its long existence in our country, says Rama.

On why media is described the way it is today, he cites Malinao's book stating that most Filipino heroes who emerged from the revolution were likely connected with newspapers and the propaganda movement against Spain.

"Media was not created overnight," Rama explains. You cannot blame it but it cannot exist in a vacuum because it is a result of its interaction with the society itself.

Claims Of Bias

Mandaue City assistant treasurer Cipriano Jamora says loss of objectivity in the treatment of an issue is already a form of adversarial journalism. Thus the view of the media person is biased when he delivers the news.

"It's unfair," he says recalling a "bad" experience he had with a media person. The news about the biggest shabu laboratory found in Mandaue was still fresh to him. City Hall officials and employees were interviewed at the time, and Jamora was one of them.

A well-know radio commentator interviewed him, via phone patch, and asked him how come the Mandaue officials did not know of the existence of the shabu lab when the building where it was discovered was a business establishment.

Jamora said he tried his best to answer well but he felt the radio commentator seemed bent on pushing the idea that it was their fault. "Wala kaayo ko katubag. Iya man i-diin gyud nga sad-an mi. (I was not able to answer well. He was imposing the idea that it was our fault)," he says.

To Jamora, "The radio commentator was biased." But Rama says bias is not only about being adversarial to a particular thing. It can also mean favoring and taking the side of someone over another. Anything off-center, whether leaning to the left or right, can be a case of bias, he says.

However, Elmido says bias is inherent in man, to himself, to others, or to the offbeat. Since media practitioners are human beings, they are all infected with bias, one way or the other. The difference now lies on how one treats it with a good share of fairness still intact.

"It's even not just being chummy with sources," says Elmido. Sometimes, the relationship between a media person and the source may get romantic, even passionate and sexual, he says recalling an experience in Manila during his time as a sports reporter.

Rama concurred that the source and the media person get romantically attached to each other. It is really happening and some of this even ends up in marriages.

Rama discloses there are female reporters who get too close to their sources just to get easily the data they want for their reports. However even if these biases and prejudices could affect objectivity, a true journalist will not allow these things to becloud his judgement.

So easy to say but some find it hard in actual work, says Elmido. But like the complexities in relationships, a man or a woman always finds ways to make things work if the aim is to make them work. - Contributed feature for Press Freedom Week