When the Messenger becomes the Message

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In ancient times, the bearer of bad news was sometimes slain for he brought so much unhappiness to the people receiving his bad news. We have supposedly evolved and are now sophisticated enough to distinguish between the message and the messenger. Or are we?

What happens when the messenger becomes the message, as in during the failed rebellion at the Manila Peninsula hotel two weeks ago? When the news reporters become part of the news? When Ces Drilon’s high heels land on the front page? Mercifully, we are no longer contemplating stoning Ms. Drilon to death, but the incident does raise some points that are begging for discussion. Where do we draw the line today between what the media reports as legitimate news, and what they merely present as news? Who makes the decision between what goes on air and what doesn’t, what goes to the front page, and what doesn’t even see print? (And what gives them such a right and privilege?) When the news reporters themselves become celebrities in their own right, when are they “reporting” and when are they the “reported”? Where is the line between the container and the content?

The discussion is not merely academic. As the PNP alleges, sometimes, the news media (ABS-CBN, in particular) are the ones “making” the news – or worse, distorting or presenting the news in such a way as to achieve a certain desired effect (like toppling the government). Complicity in the crime of rebellion is a serious charge, and if it can be proven, then we may have a serious case of the messenger becoming the message.

In the past, nobody has taken these charges seriously. The Tribune continues to report news in a way that obviously does not always agree with what the other newspapers report. Sure, they were raided once, but most people think it was just for show. My observation is, sooner or later, these issues of conflicted interests among news media will come to a head. When vested interests are behind news reporting, it doesn’t take long before the people eventually realize that the message is somehow different when it comes from a different messenger.

Time for anti-trust laws. GMA7 takes pride in saying it everyday in their news programs, “Walang kinikilingan, walang kinakampihan, serbisyong totoo lang” – an obvious dig at ABS-CBN’s interests in many other industry sectors, such as power and telecoms.Of course, ABS-CBN gives it their spin, “Panig sa katotohanan.” And the public is left to decide for themselves what/whom to believe.Fair enough. Everybody knows nobody is really pure anyway, for there are also allegations of links between the GMA network and certain prominent political names. Vested interests are not always economic. Sometimes they are political. And we do not really know which is worse. I know which is the worst – when it is both.

Sometimes, the media go on record as pro or against a particular political/economic entity. The Philippine Star was born precisely to support then President Cory Aquino.The Gokongweis did not hide their intentions in their acquisition of the Manila Times. I honestly do not know if that makes it okay. Does being a self-confessed gay priest make it acceptable for him to be in the company of young boys?

But outside of the jabs, how far does this issue really go? And can we really have a true free press? Senator Miriam Santiago is quoted as having said, in answer to a question whether the Philippine press was free, “No, they’re very expensive!”

Joking aside, media is big business. The two major networks rake in at least a billion pesos a month from advertising revenues. That’s not peanuts. The advertising industry is worth over 100 billion pesos a year. Most of it goes to news-reporting media such as radio, television, and print (principally broadsheet newspapers and tabloids). So Senator Santiago was right. They are very expensive. And when so much money flows into the messengers’ pockets, how do we know if the money is not being used to massage the messengers into massaging the message? Sometimes it’s a no-brainer. You don’t see Meralco ads being aired over GMA7. And you see a lot of Fortune Care ads in Business Mirror.But sometimes it won’t be so obvious. For instance, is anybody keeping track – how much of San Miguel’s advertising goes into ABC5? For that matter, does anybody know where Pagcor and PCSO ad spending goes? If it is mainly in NBN4, RPN9, and IBC13, I suppose that is to be expected. But what if it isn’t?

This is actually a pretty complex issue, and would need to cover so much more ground than can be handled in a single column. Let us leave this where it is for now and pick it up again in our next issues. Suffice it to say that in today’s increasingly interconnected world, a free and independent media is becoming harder and harder to find. And everyday, we go on living in a world increasingly shaped by a media environment that nobody is in charge of. How do we tell our children that their thinking was largely influenced by what they saw on TV, or heard over on radio, and read in the many publications that have sprouted around us while they were growing up -- and that we were too busy going about our lives that we never bothered to ask, “Who’s in charge here?”

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