MIRON

Chicken Out?

I couldn't believe my eyes first time I saw it. A bloody knife-wielding Col. Sanders about to butcher a chicken -- in broad daylight and in a huge billboard along EDSA. "Kentucky Fried Cruelty," the billboard read. "Live Scalding..."

It must be the heat! Sure enough, the next time I passed EDSA just a few days later, the billboard was gone. What happened? Did the people who put it up chicken out? I'm determined to find out.

It took me no time to trace the billboard to KentuckyFriedCruelty.com, a site put up by PETA or People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals, based in Norfolk, VA.

PETA is "asking KFC to eliminate the worst abuses that chickens suffer on the factory farms and in the slaughterhouses of its suppliers, including live scalding, life-long crippling, and painful debeaking."

The site shows shocking video of "KFC House of Horrors," where workers at an alleged KFC slaughterhouse stomp, kick and slam birds against walls. Another video shows "live birds forced into tanks of scalding hot water while completely conscious and able to feel pain."

Until KFC agrees to do improve its treatment of animals, PETA is calling on consumers to boycott KFC.

That I've got to see. An animal rights victory in this cockfighting dogeating country. If the disappearing billboard is any indication, though, Col. Sanders has already clipped their wings.

In Space, Nobody Can Hear You Scream

Thank God there's Cyberspace. Where every thought and prayer, whine and whimper can be heard across the blogosphere, living forever through links. Where the promises are great: Search (google) and You Shall Find. Ask and You Shall Receive. The truth (and the dirt on Brittney) is out there.

Surely cyberspace is media's new frontier, and the true domain of the irrepressible public.

No wonder, just like Star Wars, there is constant talk of domination.

What's the best tactic to create and control traffic? The strategy to spin opinion and shape content? The way to the heart of the Sassy Lawyers, Drudges, and Instapundits of this world? Soon every propagandist would have a blog of his own. And everyone will have a say in this endless conversation.

So all you Lurkers, speak up! Our secret world is discovered! Our cover is blown! Blogging has made the covers of Fortune and Forbes and BusinessWeek. Big business, smelling money, have put up flogs (fake blogs) of their own. And celebrities, smelling fame, are getting in on the action. Erwin Romulo, you are right, it's getting tedious wading through all this clutter.

Soon, even in Cyberspace, Nobody can hear you Scream.

Will the real Van Gogh please rise?

We in the television media saw them coming --- kids of a new generation armed to teeth with mini-dvs, laptops that are foldable editing suites, celphones that take video, cameras that shoot like film, all of them coming at us in quick time, riding the trojan horse that is reality tv.

This is great, we said as we hugged our huge betacam SPs. This is Power of the People. Now everyone can be a Spielberg, a Kubrick or a Scorsese.

Alas, it won't be easy.

The technology boom made startlingly new things possible like The Blairwitch Project, Jon Red movies (ASTIG, BOSO), music videos directed by Boom, Lyle Sacris, Robert Quebral, and Louie Ignacio, documentaries by Aureus, Ditsi Carolino, and student films by Chuck Gutierrez and the grads of Mowelfund...

But our high over all things hi-tech comes to a crash as we surf the endless channels of cable. What aired on TV used to be generally air worthy. Now, 90% of the video out there SUCKS.

90% of the time, this is what happens when great videocameras end up in the wrong hands: bad camera work with no creative use of the lens, shakey handheld shots for the sake of getting the effect of shakey handheld shots, no composition, no lighting design, no regard at all for the high craft of storytelling.

Just point and shoot. Just what the label in the box said.

But as the real directors and real cinematographers lament this systematic lowering of standards, I offer this dubious upside: FROM THIS SHIT, WILL GROW THE FLOWERS. AT LEAST THE RARE ROSE WILL SMELL TWICE AS SWEET.

Pilipinas Magkakagulo?

This is why newspapers should be careful about publishing ads on the frontpage. At the bottom of front page of today's Philippine Star: BUONG PILIPINAS MAGKAKAGULO... (turn to page 3)

While there'll be no confusing media savvy readers, the ad can still be mistaken for a real title for a real story (it's certainly meant to look like one!) by those who don't buy the paper and don't get to find out, in page 3, that it's just a print ad for Globe.

Timing is off too. The ad came out just when the public is skittish with talks of juntas, revolutions, and coups.

Anti-GMA allies what? After their leader (who?) walks out?

Inquirer banner: ANTI GMA ALLIES SPLIT AS LEADER WALKS OUT
Philippine Star banner: SEDITION RAPS POISED VS ABAT

The Philippine Star wins today. Their banner headline is so simple and direct to the point that it will take readers just a second to understand what happened (abat faces sedition charges after calling for revolutionary government). The headline is even supported by a group photo of Abat and other retired generals making a clear gesture of defiance.

On the other hand, it will take you a few moments to ponder what Inquirer's headline meant, especially if you haven't been following the news and don't even know who the "anti-GMA allies" are, much less who their leader is, why he would "walk out", causing the the anti-gma allies to "split".

The difficult to digest banner headline would have made sense if this were a running story that the Inquirer bannered yesterday. But yesterday's headline story was entirely about something else (haydee bares pressure) and this is Inquirer's first time to break the news of the junta.

I guess the lesson here is --- How to break the story? Try starting from the beginning....