Government and the Business of Media

By Jose L. Pavia

When government runs media, it is in effect saying that the best way to tell the story of government is for it to do the telling. And, given the reach and power of media, obvious is the choice for it in getting the story told.

Thus, the Philippine media landscape has state-run national radio and television networks plus the sequestered TV channels and radio stations (and, until last year, a sequestered national daily newspaper), the Philippines News Agency (PNA), the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), as well as other media and information infrastructure and assets, offices, units and personnel, including those of state-owned and government-controlled corporations.

Vast and well-funded indeed is the state’s story-telling machinery. Malacañang just recently saw the need to consolidate and coordinate its operation, in particular, the control and allocation of funds for advertising in the private media. It did so with Executive Order 511.

That the government owns and runs media assets is part of the democratic setting. The public has learned to accept that reality. But what the people are wondering about is how come the state has not resolved the issue of sequestered broadcast facilities, and why the govern-ment continues to compete with private media for advertising revenues, for example, in the coverage of professional sports. And why President Arroyo came up with E.O. 1017 featuring a crackdown on media after rela-ting the story of a communist-military rightist coup attempt “recklessly magnified by certain elements of the national media” that, she said, caused her to declare a “State of National Emergency.”

During the week E.O. 1017 lasted and even after she ended the “emergency,” fears lingered that Malacañang was getting set to go all the way as President Marcos did 34 years ago.

Temptation of commerce
When government runs media, the Philippine experience is such that the temptation to go all way—run after, control, and suppress media to extent of shutting them down—seems too inviting to resist, particularly so in times of emergency when the instinct for survival is paramount.

That very same instinct is what Malacañang cited in resorting to emergency rule, rounding up the state’s enemies and threatening to go hard on all those the Arroyo administration has tagged as destabilizers, pushing nine media groups and at least 36 journalists across the archipelago to unite and petition the Court of Appeals to stop the President’s men from restraining media reporting and intimi-dating journalists.

In refusing to be cowed, going to court and being extra vigilant, the petitioners wasted little time in launching a stout defense of the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression as enshrined in the Constitution. But more importantly, they are one in fighting for the people’s right to know and be told the truth by the free press, the unfettered media.

While the government has legitimate reasons to engage in the mass dissemination of information, when government runs media, another irresistible temptation is commerce. The state should leave the business side of media to the private sector. All government media assets should be operated with public funds to ensure that only one interest—the people’s—is served.

This would go a long way toward establishing credibility. For a government newspaper or publication and state-operated radio or television must have credibility just like the private media. Without credibility there’s no reason for being in the market place of ideas, information, news, and opinions.

The same is true for jour-nalists in both the government and commercial media. Their badge of recognition is credi-bility for without it one is no better than a hack.

While government media newsrooms are vulnerable to red tape, ineptitude, graft and corruption, and the “padrino” system that have plagued and continue to bedevil the bureaucracy, there are those who have managed to perform creditably and stay credible. They are the journalists who found work in or were recruited by government media but have remained real pros, adhering to the basics of journalism and its code of ethics, fully aware that the criteria for excellence and the standards of professional conduct are one and the same no matter what sector one works in—government or private.

Political climate and credibility
The degree of difficulty for journalists in the government service to adapt and hang on without compromising their credibility is influenced by the political climate.

To preserve the Republic and keep himself in power Marcos dumped democracy and, for effect, put an end to any and all story-telling by what to him was a wayward press and licentious media.

Recall that when the dictator allowed the resumption of story-telling, the public saw the era of the crony media bloom and for 14 years the nation was spoon-fed with news, views, data, and comments the regime’s censors initially had to clear.

But martial law and its guidelines were clear enough, with force and effect coming out of the barrel of the gun. It did not take long for the “story-telling” under Proclamation 1081 to quietly settle down and become “routine.” The assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983 and his funeral procession that drew some three million mourners “routinely” did not see print nor merit air time.

Yes, there were a number of this and that that ruffled the sensitivities of the New Society rulers. The bouncers of martial law imposed punitive measures against “erring” media entities, arrested “disobedient” journa-lists, and continued the round-up of the regime’s “enemies.”

Still and all, the repression had to end sometime. The struggle to regain freedom was in no small way fueled by a band of gallant journalists and the “mosquito press” typified by Joe Burgos, his We Forum and Malaya as well as other media icons who kept the flame of democracy burning.

The reckoning
Then, confident he had all the aces, Marcos agreed to a snap election. Sure enough he defeated Cory Aquino, but the Filipino people thought they had enough of the dictator’s arrogance of power such as his rigged election victory. And so on a lazy Saturday afternoon in February 1986 began what Filipinos will be famous for in history — the EDSA people power revolt. The deposed tyrant fled into exile, democracy returned to the islands and free men once more have press freedom.

Recall also that martial law resulted in the exodus of many jobless journalists—the ones Marcos’s police and soldiers did not arrest and throw in jail—to the state-run information, news, print, and broadcast entities. And the so-called “crony media” hired many more of the displaced.

They had no choice. Yet, the adversarial nature of the relationship of the media and government must have led to a time for reckoning that would force them to confront the reality of their situation. So too will it come to pass for the journalists working in government media today.

Such a time for reckoning must come and when it does, the journalists must choose: stay on the job and suffer the loss of credibility because the story-telling that has to be done may no longer be in keeping with the criteria of excellent journalism and the ethical practice of the craft; or walk away with credibility intact believing that losing one’s credibility is not worth the job—any job. n

Jose L. Pavia was founding general manager of the Philippines News Agency. He is now executive director of the Philippine Press Institute.

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