Still no time to write but must help in effort to knock some sense into President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. (Has she gone mad?! ). So will let Neal Cruz do the talking:
Let me educate these officials, as simply as possible, about the basic principles of journalism. Let's call it Journalism 101.
Newspapers exist to report news. They were born out of a need by the people to know what is going on in their government and society. And what is news? It is defined as "anything unusual." The classic example is that if a dog bites a man, it is not news; but if a man bites a dog, then that is news. Cases of dogs biting humans are common, so it is not interesting to readers, but humans biting dogs are indeed rare and readers would be eager to know why he did it and how the dog reacted.
So why does the press play down or ignore something good that a public official does and play up anything bad that he does?
Of course. Because public officials are expected to do good -- that's their job; that's nothing unusual. But when they do something bad, that's unusual and they're not supposed to do that. So that is news.
When the time comes when the situation is reversed, when doing good is so rare it becomes news and doing bad so common that it is no longer news, then we would be in a very sorry state indeed. We are already slowly going into that. Stories of honest cab drivers and janitors returning money they found now make the front pages. Is that an indication that honesty has now become so rare that it is now front-page news?
Aren't we all expected to be honest at all times, from the President (and especially the President) down to the janitor? That is why when a president cheats in an election, it is big news. That is why when a president lies, it is big news. That is why when a president steals, it is big news. That is why when presidential relatives accept bribes from gambling lords, it is big news. They are not supposed to do those things.
As for those stories Ate Glue complained about, they were not invented by the press. These are facts-they actually happened. All the press did was report them, which its duty. It was just the messenger. But Ate Glue wants to shoot the messenger for bringing the message.
Ate Glue has nobody to blame but herself for all the bad press she is getting. There is one surefire way to always get a good press: Always do good, and don't do anything bad.
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