SONA: State of News Anchors

A well-known television news anchor, doing her bit in her network’s coverage of the State of the Nation Address of President Arroyo last Monday, spent a considerable length of time — about 10 minutes or so — complaining to the nation about a personal predicament.

First she complained that security personnel at the Batasan demanded that she produce an invitation to the SONA. “Since when do the media need an invitation to cover the SONA,” she sneered.

Well, either she thinks her being in media makes her so powerful that she can barge in on anyone’s kitchen with nary a knock, or she needs to be reminded that not even the press card of the most powerful news organization in the world means open access to any event anywhere.

Was she trying to imply that every Tom, Dick and Harry with a press card can just barge in on the Batasan to cover the SONA? Or was she just toeing the obvious line of never seeing anything positive about this president?

After complaining about the invitation cards, she directed her questioning to why, as opposed to previous practice, the OB-Vans of the broadcast media mere moved away from their usual parking spaces.

Here is an “invited guest” complaining about how the host decided to set up the seating arrangements. Such attitude reflects the spoiled mentality of some in a profession that has gotten used to being pampered with the best accommodations on the house.

From there, our news anchor, who was supposed to let the nation get unbiased and varied glimpses of the atmosphere prior to the SONA, proceeded to agonize about how security would later “herd” all journalists to a designated place in the building.

Apparently, what to other people would appear as an attempt at sense and order was, to our news anchor, an infringement of a non-existent journalistic right to traipse all over the place during coverage, again a manifestation of arrogance and a desire for special treatment.

Fortunately, such attitude does not sweep the entire gamut of Philippine journalism and there are still journalists professional enough to know their proper places even in this often topsy-turvy world that we call our overly-politicized home.

Of course I am not saying our news anchor has no right to complain. After all, with people having different levels of comfort, different circumstances are bound to rub individuals in a wide variety of ways.

But the entire nation did not tune in to her network’s broadcast to hear about her personal discomfort for 10 minutes, airtime that could have been given people what they needed to see or hear, or if used to air commercials, could already have earned her network millions.

Certainly you do not hear such kind of griping from CNN reporters and other truly professional journalists, not even when they are getting thrown out the window by uncooperative regimes. Because in this business, they know the hazards of the job are part of the territory.

But since we are, in this country, too quick to invoke press freedom, let us be reminded that personal comfort or accommodation are never any basis to cry oppression. Press freedom is so much higher and definitely more sacred than our desire to do our job with ease.

Now back to our news anchor who, done with her spiel about lost poise and grace, went on to read text messages from selected well-known critics of the president about what they want to hear in the SONA.

So there we were, about to get it straight from the horse’s mouth, being treated instead to the buzzing of horseflies by a news anchor who never realized that, in a few minutes all other sound and fury would become moot and academic. For inanity, this one takes the cake.

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Wrong billing for a food product in a shopping mall

WRONG BILLING. The wife of a wellknown private university administrator went shopping for groceries and food products in a shopping mall. Among her purchases was an imported food product with a price tag of P75. She bought half a dozen of this. After paying at the cashier’s counter she discovered that instead of P75 she was wrongly charged P750 each. She didn’t make a fuss. No problem. Except that no one in the cashier’s counter said sorry for the recklessness.

ALWAYS CHECK. A DTI official has always been reminding shoppers to check any food product’s expiry date. Which is a welcome advice. One Ear reader sometime ago bought a packaged local delicacy for “sinugatan” purposes only to discover at home that the expiry date had elapsed. “May nalang nasakpan ko. Nauwawan unta ko kon nahatag ko isip sinugatan,” the reader said.