Monday, September 22, 2008 Editorials: Raising media IQ
TYPICALLY, Cebuanos run against the grain.
Starting yesterday, the Cebu press—print, radio, television and online—commemorates the 14th Cebu Press Freedom Week, the only one of its kind in the whole country.
Fourteen years ago, the Cebu press chose Sept. 21, the day President Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law in the country, to celebrate a freedom many perceive as the bedrock of democracy.
Even as the country marks the 36th anniversary of the declaration of martial law, Cebu’s journalists took to the streets in yesterday’s Sunday parade to celebrate press freedom. September is also observed as Broadcasters’ Month by the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas.
But just as these milestones don’t deny or whitewash the past—the state muzzling of the press, media self-censorship, envelopmental journalism, the control of the crony press—Cebu journalists have to rise to the current and future challenges of being vibrant, progressive partners in community development, a unique role that the national broadsheets, though bigger and wider in circulation, have yet to dominate.
Media critics
Led by this year’s convenor, The Freeman, Cebu’s oldest existing daily, the Cebu media will focus this week on many concerns of the industry.
Traditionally, Cebu Press Freedom Week has always involved other sectors of the community—the academe, business, government, religious, nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and civil society—in scrutinizing how the media has carried out its public service duties through news and public affairs coverage.
By keeping itself open to continuing dialogues with news sources, news consumers and future media practitioners, the Cebu media partially meets its social obligation to promote media literacy.
Media literacy or media education seeks to empower citizens to navigate better a media-centric world. The goal goes beyond training citizens to be critical consumers of the messages filtered by media. Civil society can be pro-active advocates of the right to information for all, not just for media gatekeepers but also the public as monitors and participants shaping information.
According to the Media Awareness Network (www.media-awareness.ca), schools, NGOs and media can make citizens aware enough to ask “pertinent questions about what’s there, and noticing what’s not there.”
Media literacy can enhance the “instinct to question what lies behind media productions—the motives, the money, the values and the ownership—and to be aware of how these factors influence content.”
News shapers
But media literacy should extend beyond criticism and include engaging media, advocates the Media Awareness Network.
Efforts to explain the process of producing news can be the media’s counterparting to enable citizens to not just demand greater accountability and social responsibility from the media.
To be constructive as critics and active as stakeholders, citizens can participate in gathering and disseminating news and public service. If they are dissatisfied with the media-filtered information and news agenda, they can contribute information through the channels Cebu media has made available.
Access to such channels also imposes an obligation for aspiring citizen journalists to learn the techniques, standards and ethics of journalism. While undoubtedly, the Internet has opened the limitless potentials of websites and web logs for carrying out citizen journalism, the traditional portals of print, radio and TV still have unrivalled access to the Cebu public.
In immersing themselves in the process of media engagement, citizens can learn along the way the same standards of accuracy, fairness and accountability that society has set up for guiding media responsibility.
Reconciling these two potent forces—the “traditions and structures of a privatized, commercial media culture,” and “new, progressive avenues of citizen speech and discourse”—will make the local media vital in promoting Cebu and press freedom.
