EDITORIAL - Journalism at a crossroads

The problem with some journalists is that they take affront as easily as they are quick to lash out and criticize. It seems the lessons we learned in elementary science that any action begets a corresponding reaction have not really prepared them for the real life.

Why take umbrage at a Capitol threat to sue over negative reporting? It is just a threat. Bad as the threat may be, no harm has been done. Or if harm has been done, certainly it must be felt more by the Capitol than the journalists who felt threatened.

The threat was like the Capitol shooting itself on the foot, and it must now be agonizing over that costly faux pas. Cebu journalists need not join in the agonizing. Let not overeagerness at self-righteousness succeed in pushing us all into the same situation Capitol now finds itself.

A press card is not a defense against threats. It does not provide a journalist immunity from both accountability and criticism. If we can dish it out, we should be prepared to take it in. Anyone who believes he is beyond reproach has no business being in this profession.

Many of our colleagues in Mindanao recently gave up their lives under circumstances that, sad to say, are not exactly closed to question. Still, the dignity of their humanity makes their loss not only painful but also our very own.

The least we can do for them, and recover for the profession what may have been lost, is to keep being able to distinguish the things that matter from the inconsequential. Only then can we effectively be in a position to know whether to take a threat seriously or to ignore it.

It is alarming, to say the least, that some journalists are beginning to think it a badge of honor by simply being able to criticize Capitol, such that others are even considering joining the bandwagon, for the dubious honor of avoiding being called wimps or worse, as Capitol lackeys.

What a sad day for journalism if this is the mindset that now prevails in the profession. In this calling we have been taught the imperatives of objectivity, of not taking sides, of not being participants in the story we tell.

To be sure, there are things difficult to like about the Capitol. Many of these things could even be true. But that is not enough reason for journalists to lose their balance and go berserk at a threat of retaliation that they themselves know and recognize to be ridiculous.