Journalism’s not about the journalist
WHATEVER THE medium — whether print, broadcast or online — journalism is about the news, not about the journalist. What’s most relevant to readers, viewers and listeners is what’s happening and what it means to them, not what the journalist thinks about it, or how it affects him or her.
A disaster, for example, is news because of its impact on people’s lives. What a journalist thinks about it or feels, even the dangers he had to face to get the news, are at best secondary, and seldom of any real-life value to readers, viewers and listeners. But the principle seems to escape some journalists, especially those in television, where the cameras often focus on the practitioner, what he was doing during a disaster or similar event, the difficulties he had while covering it, the perils he had to face, as well as his often off- the-cuff, and uninformed, opinions.
Some networks go even further: they put the practitioner before the cameras in interviews and public affairs programs, in the process transforming him or her from news reporter to a news maker whose personal experience and opinions matter as much as those of his or her sources, and even those of the people affected by a news event.
The nature of the medium does have something to do with it. The TV journalist is not only a name; he or she is also a face and a personality because of his or her exposure on the TV screen, unlike the print journalist whose face and person is most of the time anonymous to readers even if his or her byline is not. But the practice is further strengthened by network decision makers concerned over ratings and revenues.
The ABS-CBN news program TV Patrol has practically institutionalized the practice of focusing on the practitioner by including in the last few minutes of the program a portion during which the three program anchors (Noli de Castro, Ted Failon and Korina Sanchez) engage in an unscripted conversation about the news — or about anything else, including each other’s clothes.
Their comments on the news do sometimes make sense, but the conversation’s choice of focus and outcome, because dependent on which anchor’s take on any subject becomes the conversation agenda, is so unpredictable as to result, in some instances, in the news’ being trivialized and transformed from a matter of public concern into a joke.
The program portion is basically about the anchors, although meant, according to a source in the network, to “humanize” them as well as to enhance the credibility of the program. And yet, “humanizing” practitioners is far from being the mandate of news programs. The argument that putting them before the cameras in a free-wheeling conversation enhances the program’s credibility — presumably by a process of transference of the presumed credibility of the three anchors to the program itself — is at least debatable.
All three anchors have had problems in this area, among other reasons because of Failon (a former congressman) and De Castro’s (a former Vice President of the Republic) forays into politics, and Sanchez’ widely known bias in favor of her husband, the Secretary of the Interior, if not the current administration. Whether in fact TV Patrol is more credible than other news programs in other networks because of the exposure it provides all three is at least open to question.
Towards enhancing the credibility of both the anchors and the program, the network can in fact do worse than to impose some kind of structure in the now free-wheeling portion of TV Patrol. It can constitute the three anchors into a panel, for example, with each of them assigned to comment on an event in the news about which he or she has a presumed expertise, which through time and practice, they can develop, in the process endowing both themselves as well as the program with a level of credibility above those of their counterparts in the other networks. This could refocus the program portion from basically being all about the anchors to being all about the news, what it means, and how it affects everyone.
That after all, is what journalism is all about.
I do certainly agree with you, Sir Teodoro. These “newscasters” draw attention to themselves and aggresively create news themselves competing with the headlines of the day. Pathetic.
i agree with you carole…..we have a media called sensationalism