Image-making or information?

AMONG PUBLIC officials as well as those other individuals whose jobs and functions in society put them in the public eye, how they are perceived by others, as dictated by their interests, has become more and more critical.

In this so-called Information Age, both the old media (print and broadcasting) and the new (online news sites, news blogs, and social media) have become the main sources of the information citizens need to discharge their duties as the sovereigns in a developing democracy. The media are in fact in the process of replacing the traditional roles of the school, the Church, and even the home in performing that empowering function.

This has made the cultivation of a favorable image among the leading—at times even the leading—priority in the public agendas of government functionaries, school administrators, members of civic organizations, the leaders of various churches, and the executives of business corporations, thus putting them in the same company as actors, media celebrities, rock stars, and other entertainers.

As the prime disseminators of information on a massive scale, the media have in the process become the logical targets of those institutions and individuals who, whether for profit or political gain, have a stake in the way they are perceived by the public. The media are thus wooed by the representatives of various interests with all the means available including the unethical and illegal: whether by being paid off in exchange for the publication of a press release, and/or winning their goodwill through free trips, gifts, and other inducements.

Among the consequences on media ethics and professional standards are corruption and conflicts of interest, which in turn lead to biased, incomplete, and misleading reports, commentaries, and analyses.

The consequences on the media are bad enough. But the impact on the public need for information is worse, contributing to citizen misinformation as well as disinformation and plain lack of information on even the most pressing public issues.

Every Philippine election, for example, has become the near-exclusive domain of public relations practitioners acting in behalf of this or that party or candidate. These spin masters generate the self-serving press releases that despite professional sanctions often end up published or broadcast with only minor changes, if at all. They shepherd practitioners during their patrons’ political sorties by providing them with transportation, the cost of meals and accommodations, and in too many cases, the usual envelope.

Public relations has in effect transformed some of the media into the domain of the limited interests the practitioners of “PR”represent, rather than as a forum for the discussion of issues of public interest and as a source of information and analysis. Every major issue, whether it be reproductive health, divorce, freedom of information, or the steady rise of criminality, is almost always mediated by public relations practitioners through the media, which, unbeknownst to its practitioners and even decisions makers, in many cases end up surrendering their vital role of setting the agenda of public discourse to the interests represented by PR practitioners. In the present era, those interests are almost always those of government agencies, business corporations, and foreign governments. The result is the creation of a vast section of the public so grossly misinformed about the issues about which they have to make decisions, it is easily manipulated into adopting the agendas of limited interests as its own. The consequence is the debasement of much of public opinion, and the weakening of democratic choice and decision-making. This power, which some citizens already begrudge journalists because they perform what is essentially a public responsibility despite having been neither been elected nor appointed by any democratically-chosen power, is being exercised by behind-the-scenes, even shadowy individuals and groups most citizens are unaware of.

Media practitioners need to reclaim their role as the primary providers of fair, unbiased and, to the extent that it is possible, complete information and analysis. Fundamental to this process is the understanding that surrendering that role to limited interests for whatever reason, whether for personal gain or convenience, not only contributes to the lack of reliable information and disinformation that has made governance and development so problematic in this country. It also undermines the credibility of the journalism profession by making it seem as if image-making rather than information were its stock-in-trade, and effectively excludes it as a relevant player in the national imperative to address, describe and analyze such critical issues as national development, environmental degradation, human rights, social justice, foreign relations, and even the election of the individuals and groups to whom they delegate their sovereign powers of governance every three years.