Dumb and dumbing down
When released hostage Angelo de la Cruz arrived in his home town to a hero's welcome, the close relatives who greeted him all wore identical white shirts with the Tagalog slogan: 'Part of Our Family'.
It was a scene that made for good television. As a matter of fact, it was made by television. The slogan was actually that of the country's largest broadcast company, ABS-CBN, and the shirts all had the company's insignia on them. The relatives, who had been given the shirts, were living promotional props in a bitter ratings war.
The depth of that bitterness was evident in the way an ABS-CBN reporter publicly abused Mr de la Cruz's sister-in-law for granting exclusive interviews to a competing network. The reporter said that her team had been camped out in her yard for so long that they owned the story. It was just one more squalid chapter in the degradation of broadcast news. Most commentators call the Philippine media 'unrestrained' and 'exuberant', when they actually mean 'unscrupulous' and 'shallow'.
To paraphrase what French politician Georges Clemenceau said about war and generals, news here is too serious a business to be left to journalists. The rush for ratings and profits has created a broadcast industry that thrives on the sensational and the superficial, and is not too keen on ethics and professionalism. Switch on the radio and you will find the airwaves full of shrill voices, deliberately pitched to sound excited. Broadcasters claim they talk that way because they are competing with a lot of background noise - but when a correspondent frantically reports on traffic, the weather, or the price of fish, the effect is hilarious.
The broadcast news circus has done a lot to dumb down the levels of public discourse. News stories are dissected in terms of personalities and dark motives, and many presenters inject snide remarks and opinions. Last year, one newscaster suddenly decided she wanted to be a negotiator, and tried calling on a group of mutinous soldiers to surrender. Recently, a radio commentator berated a cabinet secretary for discussing statistics that he could not grasp.
Curiously, broadcast news readers who project themselves as righteous inquisitors of public officials have no compunction about crossing the line and appearing in adverts selling drugs or herbal supplements. And some go on to become public officials themselves. The country's vice-president, Noli de Castro, won on the basis of his ability to read the news in a baritone voice.
Some of these talents - how shall I put it - do not have high wattages. I remember one of them using the word 'assassinator'. I heard it in a cab where the radio was kept on by the driverator.
