The need for enlightened journalism and journalists

Media

Part of Panorama

Title: The need for enlightened journalism and journalists
Language: English
Source: Volume XV (Issue No.1) January 1963
Year: 1963
Rights
Abstract: The times demand that the media of communications be as free and as objective as possible. But our newspapers have betrayed their responsibility. Why?
Fulltext: The times demand that the media of communicationfc be as free and as objective as possible. But our newspapers have betrayed their responsibility. Why? THE NEED FOR' ENLIGHTENED JOURNALISM AND JOURNALISTS i While admittedly science and technology have shrunk the world to such an extent that only hours separate the capitals of Europe and Asia from the regions of Africa, the abyss which separates men’s minds is still as wide as it was when Rabelais, more than three centuries ago, ob served that “half the world does not know how the other half lives.” The bridges span ning that abyss, the media of communications which sup posedly have enabled men to know one another better, are at best frail and at worst illu sory and deceptive. They are frail because they are of bad materials, they are deceptive because often they give only the illusion that the abyss has been spanned. The newspapers, which, more than the radio, televi sion or films, reach the great er number of people, have often been the harbingers of that false sense of knowledge between men. The abyss bet ween their minds, if we may be allowed to pursue the me taphor further, may also be taken as the abyss between the two worlds, the East and the West, which, both ideo logically and culturally speak ing, have never spanned that chasm with a suitable bridge which would bring them to gether. And in this pitiable state of affairs, the future, if ever there will be a future, will heap most of the blame an the newspapers. J For either wilfully or other wise, the newspapers, in spite of the fact that they hold the power to bring East and West together and perhaps bring about a better understanding between men, have done no thing less than the opposite. In this they have betrayed 60 Panorama their responsibility, not only to nations or to groups of nations, but potentially to the whole world. For today when there is greater need for sanity, when the world stands at the brink — facing its greatest test of whether men will turn their rockets to heaen or to each other, the news papers have saddeningly add ed only to the madness which threatens to possess us. They have fanned the waves of hysteria through false reports, they have set nations upon another through such exam ples of journalism which cha racterized the coverage of the Congo crisis. The newspapers are the books of the people, and the people learn what to think, what to say, what to demand through the newspapers. The enlightened newspapers know that an enlightened people creates an enlightened nation, and an enlightened nation may bring enlighten ment to the whole world, in this age when one example may turn the rest. But if the newspaper condones the pre judices of the people, and re ports the news according to the conformist temper, then what enlightment can follow? The Cuban affair is not an isolated case. Just as the newspapers which reach us did not give us the full pic ture in Laos, or the Congo, on in Berlin, so did they present to us a lop-sided view of Cuban-American relations. Perhaps this is forgivable, if we presume — and indeed it is a presumption — that the majority of the people think for themselves and do not listen to one-sided interpre tations of world or domestic affairs. If we may presume that this is so, then the pic ture becomes brighter, it seems, for given the inform ation, one may draw his own conclusions. But again in this regard we find ourselves against a wall: the newspapers, more often than not, have been proven to accept rumor as fact, opinion as actuality. For the cardinal sin of the newspapers is not that they do not inform, but that they mis-inform. Perhaps it would not be unfair to say that the muddled world sit uation, the spectacle of man on the brink of annihilation, can partly be blamed on the fact that the newspapers have unwittingly or otherwise failed to present JANUARY 1963 61 the accurate and complete picture of foreign situations. But all this may sound too far-off, too unnatural. The world situation, one may say, is not that bad. This is the consolation of those who live in a fool’s paradise: of those who hold the blanket of false security over their heads, re fusing to accept that the blanket offers no protection at all. If the newspapers were accused before a court for the gravest crime they have committed against men and nations, the charge would most probably be not that of giving men a feeling of insecurity, but that of lulling them into a false sense of security, which is the more dangerous. It is the more dangerous in that it makes men content in their complacency, exultant in their ignorance. And ig norance, in this age when so much is at stake, is the sin against the Holy Ghost. If men are ignorant of such world affairs as the Berlin crisis (or of affairs in Laos where a Congressman at one time wanted to send Filipino troops to); unknowingly ig norant, but cajoled into be lieving that they are wise, then they become content, reasoning thus: I know, I am wise, therefore, there is nothing to fear. Knowledge brings security, one is secure in knowing what the stakes are, what may happen. next, and how to remedy mistakes and to act accordingly. But if the knowledge is false, then one is led into a false sense of security: one merely thinks he knows what the stakes are, what may happen next, what to do. Such false knowledge leads to false remedies: a case of applying the wrong cure for the wrong ailment. Those blinded by the harsh light of reality will stumble into the pit. The Romans refused to heed the signs of collapse; the foundations crumbled before they could apply the appropriate re medy. Centuries later, the Germans were beaten up to a frenzy of hatred against the Jews, only to wake up four years later to find millions of Jews dead and burdens to their conscience. One may well ask at this point: but it is possible that whole nations may be led to believe a false idea? The willful manipulation of pub 62 Panorama lie opinion known as propar ganda has proven this time and again. Hitler managed to stir a whole nation be hind an irrational cause, was able to whip it into a frenzy of hate. At home, here in the Philippines, one has only to look around to answer this question: the witchkhunter prospers as he condones the prejudices of the mass and is condoned by the newspapers. The elite resists all efforts to be dislocated, as their bene volent images are flashed be fore the public eye, while they steal the shirt off the people’s backs. The alien gains more and more power as he is painted as a whole some image by the newspa pers before the people he ex ploits. The intellectuals are at bay, the non-conformists pilloried.. All this through those organs which form, re mold and sway public opin ion. The greater mass of peo ple cannot buy books, can not afford radios or tele vision sets. They turn to the newspapers. The newspa pers, by condoning their pre judices, by clouding the facts, have helped create a people without identity, a people still plagued by me dieval fears, a people ignor ant and complacent, fight ing the wars of other people and an easy prey to exploit ers, both national and alien. One may well ask: why have the newspapers betray ed their responsibility? II What is the ideal news paperman? He is preferably a college graduate, has had a liberal education in the sciences, the arts, politics. His work requires a depth of feeling, an intellect of broad horizons capable of un derstanding. Unfortunately, it seems that this ideal newspaperman does not exist, or if he does, may find himself lost among the not-so-ideal, and presum ably corrupted by them. For perhaps the biggest factor to which we can attribute the failure of newspapers to live up to their ideals is ignor ance. The newspapers are full of it everyday: narrow minded editorials, smug, me diocre columns, slanted news reports, propaganda mater ial taken for fact. A case in point is the con fusion in terms which mani January 1963 63 fested itself during the cele brated witch-hunt of the last preselection witch-hunting season: the newspapers did not bother to clarify the con fusion but added to it. The isms were' mixed up and made as one, producing the tongue-twisting combination of this ism: tatheism-agnostic i s m-c o m m u n i s msocialism. The newspaper became, unwittingly or other wise, an instrument to mir ror the prejudices of the mass, an instrument to make them feel safe and arrogant in their ignorance. And then one still remem bers the American coverage of the Cuban “invasion” which was swallowed by the Filipino press with the gull ibility of school children. It is such ignorance that should be remelied, such gul libility that should be stop ped in our newspapers. But if one will do this, then one must reform the members who make up the newspa pers: the men behind it make the newspaper what it is. The uneducated, even those who have diplomas from some diploma mill, whose perpectives are limited to reading and writing and adding a column of figures, should not become news papermen. The world does not encompass merely one’s self: one knows that there are other people, other feel ings besides one’s own: this the newspaperman must know. But when his preju dices are many and varied, his intellectual horizons li mited, his misconceptions legion, then he has no place in a newspaper. Ill The newspaperman’s par ticipation in the propaganda war is either unconscious or deliberate. In the first case it involves ignorance, the in ability to distinguish news from propaganda. In the se cond, it is part of a campaign into which the newspaper man must be above even the cold war between East and West. Over and above his partisan feelings in his duty to report the news objective ly, to comment on it and to interpret it regardless of his affiliations. But often, while the newspaperman may himself know this, other factors may force him to submit; to write or print propaganda material. The 64 Panorama publisher may stand to lose something or may have com mon interests with either side: in which case, the pub lisher takes a hand in the act ual running of the paper, de cides which editorials are to be printed, which news to be given prominence or sup pressed. This is direct, un veiled control of the power of the printed word. On the the other hand, the newspaperman may be pres sured indirectly: he may cen sor himself, or may write ac cording to what he knows the advertisers want. Or it may be more petty. It may be personal propaganda foi the publisher and may take the form of suppression or manufacturing of news, or slanting it and weighing it down on one side’s favor, or it may involve fuzzy logic in the editorial pages, or pre judiced opinion in the co lumns. Thus the newspaper be comes, in the first ca se, an organ for the ideological war and in the second, a second shadow of the publisher, fol lowing him everywhere and bending to his will. Such an arrangement, in either case, breeds the kind of newspa pers which do not properly belong in any society which seeks to improve itself. For they are weak and timorous newspapers which take no sides but their own, they choose, to straddle the fence instead of being involved in issues as protagonists. Thus the newspaper may take issue on such a thing as d o p e-peddling. Everybody hates dope: that is as safe a line to take as any. So they campaign against dope. Well and good. But it stops there. In issues where the lines are not as well defined, where the difference between colors is not as sharp as the differ ence between black and white, buj is often subtle, the newspaper merely re ports or chooses to be silent. Thus a big newspaper chose to be non-committal over the witch-hunt in 1961 in the State University. While the other newspapers were against it or for it, it chose to be silent. Such a news paper is worse than that which betrays its prejudices for it allows for no formation of public opinion. January 1963 65' IV Perhaps the historian who shall record this age will say, if indeed newspapers are the mirror of the age, that this was a confused age: an age of ignorance primarily. For if indeed newspapers must mir ror the society in which they exist, then our newspapers will not speak well of our so ciety. But then are newspapers solely, the mirrors of society? Are they not part too of so ciety and therefore to a cer tain degree responsible in shaping it? The prejudices may exist but they can be given new form, new strength; or else diminished by the newspapers. The alien exploiters may already be strongly entrenched in the nation’s economy, but they can still be strenthened or else weakened by the news papers. But it has often been the former that the news paperman chooses. This has been so, is so and probably will be so if newspapers and newspapermen continue to be vehicles of ignorance and of the will of their publish ers. This will always be so as long as the big publishers use newspapers to protect or advance their other business es. This will always be so as long as the newspaperman voluntarily submits to cen sorship. This will always be so as long as the newspaper men continue to be as ignor ant and as bigoted as the peo ple they are supposed to en lighten. This we must consi der: the newspaperman’s pro fession demands not that he conform but that he think, that other than imbibe the vices of his society, he has the choice of attempting its im provement through the press whose power is almost unlimitted. The only remedy for ig norance is of course educat ion: education in the arts, education in sciences, edu cation in politics. But let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that the man offer ed such an opportunity for self-improvement will neces sarily grow into a fine news paperman. Education mere ly molds what is already there; it cannot supply what is missing. The newspaper therefore which would carry out its task of enlightening the people, will look not on66 Panorama ly at the diploma but at the man. The man will show himself as he really is: whe ther fanatic or liberal, ignor ant or wise. The newspaper will have to be rigid with its requirements. The res ponsibility which accompa nies the power of the writer is great but cannot be shouldered by the weak. The ability to write fast copy is not enough, as appa rently it is today. The abili ty to think, must not be only one, but the primary consi deration. But even the educated will find himself against a wall often: he has to eat too and his children have to be fed. This can be remedied by the organization of newspapers subsidized by the govern ment which will therefore be fearless both against the government and against the other segments of society. In the Philippines such a set-up is highly favorable. The freedom of the press in the country is such that the government, if it should sub sidize a newspaper, cannot possibly restrict it. When strict codes and trustees in a newspaper are set up, the possibility of political pro teges entering the newspaper becomes nil. Independent from corporations and from businesses and able to surv i v e without advertising, that newspaper will be ideal, with the newspaperman wen assured that he will not suf fer regardless of whom he hurts.' He will be the ideal fiscal izer, the ideal chroni cler of the age and the unin hibited thinker, able "to view both sides of any issue and to take sides without fear of reprisal. Such a government-subsi dized newspaper will mean the nationalization of the press first, then its indepen dence from the big publish ers. Definitely, the need for nationalizing the press has never been greater than it is now. The aliens who would control whole n a ti o n s through economic exploit ation have certainly made use of newspapers for that purpose. Nationalization, as a first step, will mean at least that the media of com munication will not be mo nopolies of aliens. It will be a step towards the redisco very of ourselves and to wards complete independ ence. JANUARY 1963 67