blogging v. journalism, my take

Written on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 4:24 am | by Abe N. Margallo

When Nick has invited me to participate in the FilipinoVoices project, I did not hesitate to tell him to count me in because I thought it was an opportunity from my own nostalgic perspective to in some way reincarnate Pinoy-rin, a virtual community founded before the advent of blogging as recognized today. That’s how I see the close parallel between FilipinoVoices.com and the moribund Pinoy-rin.net.

So, let me at the outset share here my conception then of the Pinoy-rin community not only to explain why I’m part of FilipinoVoices but also state my stand on this renewed blogging v. journalism debate:

Public forums like Pinoy-rin [or for that matter now, FilipinoVoices] hopefully will continue to challenge the monopoly role of elite media networks as “purveyor of truth.” In turn, one of the challenges our community faces would be how to safeguard from self-interest our self-appointed role as an alternative source and interpreter of information, and as active participants in the realization of certain goals that may be achieved in the light of the analysis of those information. We are starting to discern the importance of such a role in the crucible of our exchanges. Returning to our community the role of the “mob” to holler at the governors’ indiscretion, excesses and misgovernment is empowerment in the real sense of the word. In that sense, every poster in our public forums becomes a free-lance newsman or reporter “chatting” about facts and stories not given prominence by media organizations. Armed by a username, our member could yell not only at the emperor, but likewise at the businessmen and industrialists who have failed to be competitive despite state protectionism, at the educational leaders who have only succeeded to provide a mechanic’s solutions to a systemic educational problem, at our historians who have remained blind to history, or at the Anastacios [an infamous heckler then]out there claiming moral ascendancy over our countrymen who have refused to remain forever colonial.

In such a democratized setting, the Pinoy-rin community will try “to decide what will be decided” reducing webmasters and editors, subject only to minimum ground rules, as mere referees and not as censorship courts of last resort xxx. This new form of empowerment, aided by interactivity of the Internet, will hopefully force the traditional media to transform itself xxx.

For public forums like Pinoy-rin to carry out its “alternative” role, it must be ready to assume what Ms. Solita Monsod has recognized as a “public trust.” The insights provided by the messages posted in our forums should help us find some answers xxx. Several months before xxx a handful of our community members had been figuring out—online in another .dot community - how to build our own home on the basis of the vision and mission around which we have formed our consensus. We have been unsure how we would actualize our vision or accomplish our mission. At one point, it has been suggested if we could just start scaling the mountain and taking a pause at a certain height, see how the steps we would have so far taken could be retraced given the dimension of the new vista reached. Today, we are still scaling the mountain. But the insightful messages being offered by each of our participants are certainly giving all of us the benefits of a fresher perspective each day we try to allow ourselves to be a medium for truth, progress and peace.

That was about a decade ago. But during the (abortive) debate between Dean Jorge Bocobo (DJB) and John Nery of PDI on the same discourse a couple of years back, I decided to weigh in thus:

If I may take the liberty to restate DJB’s position, when media ministers to private power, it loses its true office – basically that of telling as truthfully and ethically as possible what the emperor is wearing or not wearing. Not blind spots but self-imposed “blinders” have “gagged and compromised” the media in such a way as to render it as “not so free as it pretends to be,” to appropriate once again another no-holds-barred raps from DJB.

I would assume that media practitioners who out of practical convenience choose to sidetrack issues that really matter (i.e., those that pry on the very core of the dominant system) are likely to produce muddled exchanges in the public square. It could get even worse when the same people, arrogating their agenda-setting power, ultimately drown the disparate voices of the multitude which are deemed necessary for a healthy democracy to thrive. Wouldn’t journalism in the traditional sense suffer in the process the way the truthful recording of history get “compromised” through the self-serving selection of historical accounts by the victor in war as part of the spoils?

Political correctness on the part of individual journalists may actually amount to sheer submissiveness to the private power of the people running the media business who are for the most part into it for the money. In this respect, concentrated media power as anathema to the “free market of ideas” parallels the chimera of oligopolies as dregs of the free market society.

It then becomes easier for me to appreciate DJB’s motivation leaving the mainstream channel (DJB used to be an op-ed contributor to PDI) to experience the liberation in the blogosphere.

But here’s the rub. Can there be a mainstream media if no voices are marginalized? If DJB (he claims he’s just “a human being with a blog”) is able to engage John Nery (a professional journalist, also with a blog) in an open debate for instance on the very issue of proper discourse in the public square, DJB’s position becomes, in effect, contradictory; after all, he has effortlessly helped himself to a public and free-for-all discussion with someone who is a mainstream media practitioner, for a major Philippine newspaper to boot.

Still, the saving grace for DJB’s position is probably the realization that, at least in the Philippine setting, blogging as a medium of exchange remains marginalized as yet. If we believe however the claim that blogging is also elitist in many ways, doesn’t the contradiction return?

Now take note: In John’s blog, voices from the powers that be come astray sometimes (I recall at this juncture the highly discursive calls in Newsstand of presidential men like Bobi Tiglao and Ricardo Saludo in the run-up to President Arroyo’s impeachment proceedings) and anyone can join in retort anytime (as I’ve done a number of times even while I’ve been in pajamas). Indeed, the process, as we bloggers know, could be very empowering.

Apparently in the vast ocean of public discourse through blogging, the divide between mainstream and the side stream could be blurred where every one willing to dare can just test the waters, swim to his heart’s content among the fishes and all the sea monsters or drown upon his own weight (unless someone like Sassy sets up enclosures, of course).

One of my philosophical takes on blogging is actually expounded here and on media and journalism here as well as here.

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About The Author: Abe N. Margallo is a teacher, lawyer, author, columnist, and activist. When not running, advising community associations, or teaching, he studies events, and reacts accordingly by writing, blogging (at Red’s Herring) or acting on them, alone or with others

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2 Responses to “blogging v. journalism, my take”

  1. Manuel L. Quezon III: The Daily Dose » Blog Archive » A proposal lacking a consensus on May 5th, 2008 3:22 pm

    […] Jester-in-Exile. A sober analysis is provided by The Warrior Lawyer in FilipinoVoices.com. As does Abe Margallo, also in […]

  2. Valdemar on May 6th, 2008 8:39 pm

    Blogging should not be the monopoly of the journalists and pseudos. I note that some put in so much enthusiam to the extent of paraphrasing the minds of better ones and using results of researches making it beyond the reaches of a simple guy to enjoy. In other international forums the bloggers are brief without losing their points. Here, sometimes I lose my way, confused at the end of a lengthy dissertation.

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