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Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Diaz: Media inflicting own wounds
By Cris Diaz
IT'S only in Cagayan de Oro City where media entities tolerate personnel to be as blatant and as openly destroying themselves and the media firms they are supposed to be working with.
In all our lives as a practicing journalist, we have never experienced what the media in Cagayan de Oro had.
Now, we have no idea if the management of media outfits is aware or simply ignoring breach of media professionalism among its rank and file.
In this case, we do not want to delve into media ethics in the sense that under this situation such precepts are nothing but a mere scratch of paper.
The more we talk of media ethics, the more we create questions rather than answers. So, it seems proper that professionalism among media practitioners is the best premise when talking about the state of media in the locality.
Anyway, in the more than two decades in the world of letters, this is the first time that media people come to the forefront in filing graft charges against an elective public official.
While most welcome the initiative of Eddie Dangcal, Rey Abacahin and Ronnie Waniwan, all known Cagayan de Oro radio commentators and block timers, in filing graft charges against incumbent Governor Oscar Moreno of Misamis Oriental, some prawn their actions and described them as another way of getting monetary considerations.
For one, media people identified with the camp of Moreno, are accusing these commentators as "paid hacks" backed by "handlers and political financiers."
We don't have any idea why media people in Cagayan de Oro City are so divided among themselves and are apt on spreading their dirty linen in public.
We have no idea why the managements of giant media outfits tolerate these people in their rank and file. Is this how media in the Philippines work? That the media in this country have lost an iota of "delicadeza" even for the sake of the profession?
Hiring this kind of media people cast doubts on motives of concerned media firms, which could otherwise lead some to believe that these are "necessary evils" in the pursuit of business interests. In some sense and with propriety, that could be accepted.
Yet, tolerating media practitioners to attack, impugn and libel colleagues of the profession is very disturbing. This, to think that most media people are professionals and have some kind of respectability in their own rights, is very upsetting.
One can just imagine if lawyers or doctors and other professionals of note start publicly throwing mud on their faces in the exercise of their profession.
What about if a lawyer accuses his colleague of "accepting bribes" to the detriment of his own client?
What about if doctors expose "honest mistakes" of their medical buddies who could have prescribed erroneous medication?
Or, let us say the doctor recommended an erroneous prescription to a patient known to be family foes?
We know that media firms and their management in Cagayan de Oro City could help resolve this malady. If one or two of their personnel are working for some politicians, let them be. That is their personal prerogatives.
But to use their positions to attack fellow media practitioners apparently to impress their political benefactors is something the managements of these media firm should look into.
Well, if the media outfit accepts that attacking media people and those perceived to be a threat to their existence is part of their policy, we cannot do otherwise but resolved things the way they expect it to be.
In the end, the press per se suffers from its self-inflicted wounds.
(Cris Diaz is adjudged "Best in Column Writing" by the Rotary Club of Metro Cagayan de Oro in 2000. He is Cagayan de Oro's only syndicated daily columnist. For comments and feedbacks e-mail: column_ph@yahoo.com)
(September 13, 2006 issue)
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