Category: media

protecting a plagiarist

when mainstream media can and do ignore the scandalous plagiarism of a krip yuson, when he continues to write a column for the arts and culture section of philippine star, if he continues to write for rogue magazine, when he continues to shepherd aspiring writers in the dumaguete writing workshop, if he continues to teach creative writing in the ateneo, if he continues to be a presence in the palanca awards night, what does it say of our mainstream media, our academic institutions, and our literary culture?

at least in social media he has been exposed and excoriated, as he deserves to be, and gmanews online has fired him as editor-at-large.   i am sure it helped that no less than the center for media freedom and responsibility — executive director, melinda quintos de jesus; deputy director, luis teodoro; directors jose abueva, fr. joaquin bernas, fulgencio factoran, maribel ongpin, paulynn paredes-sicam, and vergel santos — jeered at yuson from its website for attempting to legitimize plagiarism.

so again i ask, what does it say of our mainstream media, our academic institutions, and our literary culture when a krip yuson is allowed to go on as if nothing happened?   as if plagiarism by a much-admired writer is forgivable.   microcosm of the macrocosm?   if danding cojuangco can get away with the coconut levy funds, if the marcoses can get away with plunder and human rights violations, if jocjoc bolante can get away with a fertilizer scam, if gma can get away with hello-garci and extrajudicial killings, if the aquinos can get away with hacienda luisita, if the supreme court can get away with partisanship and plagiarism, if the bishops can get away with lying about sex and reproduction, if angelo reyes can get away with suicide, why not krip yuson with plagiarism?

mainstream media and academics and the righteous showbiz burgis were so quick to jump on willie revillame for the janjan episode.   this renders their silence on krip yuson’s plagiarism and arrogance both deafening and shocking.   more so when one asks why kaya the silence, and the only answer seems to be that they are protecting their own kind, condoning their own sins, tell me if i’m wrong.   wonder no more what’s happening to our country.   they are all complicit in this damaged culture.

in the spirit of disclosure: krip and i were friends until we had a falling out over a personal matter many years ago.   i’ve since kept out of his way as he has kept out of mine.   so, if we were still friends, would i be saying all these in public?   given the way he has handled it, YES, and i would not have hesitated to scream at him to his face, or over the phone, for being so stupid as to think he was big enough to get away with it.   not in my book.   friend or no friend.

social media as mosquito press

biyaheng EDSA: saan ba papunta? —  this was the question posed by ateneo’s politicial science organization’s politalk last january 31 that katrina and i attended.   my answer (via a powerpoint presentation by ina) was to point out that in both EDSA and edsa dos when we ousted marcos and erap, what empowered the people was the access to information.

pre-EDSA the mosquito press dared defy censorship and tell the nation about the hidden wealth, the fake medals, the human rights violations atbp.   pre-edsados, the live tv broadcasts, with replays, of erap’s impeachment trial in the senate informed the nation about jueteng connections, secret bank accounts, stock market scams atbp.

a next EDSA, one that would aspire for deepseated change, would call for no less than a politicized media and an adequately informed and politicized citizenry uniting behind common goals.

in 1986 with the liberation of media, television was awash with public affairs talk shows.   the people were hungry for information after 14 years of censorship.   25 years later, there is not a single public affairs talk show on free tv.   where did they all go?   why does free tv offer nothing but inane entertainment, mostly soap operas and showbiz gossip?   it’s called the dumbing down of the filipino, and we have television to thank for it.   people are so inadequately informed about national affairs, it’s impossible to come to a consensus on anything, or even intelligently participate in discourse.

read william esposo‘s When the media become the bad news and a national problem:

Philippine media, especially television, will have to account for the big Information Gap in our country. Media are the principal means for acquiring information and a look at those top rating television shows will show that more emphasis is placed on what the Filipinos want rather than on what they need to know.

…Notice the programming profile of the top three TV networks, ABS-CBN, GMA Network and ABC, and how entertainment shows dominate the daily program schedules. In a country like ours with a serious Information Gap, that could be considered irrelevant programming. Marketing considerations were allowed to overrule the dictates of public service – unacceptable when you consider that these TV networks were awarded their respective franchises by the government to operate on the condition that they will provide public service.

… In a country like ours where a lot of things are not done right, media cannot pretend that everything is hunky-dory and just praise the government. We once had a media situation where fantasia and fiction became the main staple. This was during the period of martial law from September 22, 1972 to February 24, 1986 when the government television station was liberated. We should not allow that to happen again.

… A gnawing issue that also hounds Philippine media is the ownership structures of most media companies here – specifically those media companies that are linked to political interests. Television and radio should have been isolated from such compromised situations. However, instead of protecting public interest, the system of broadcast franchising also became a tool for political patronage. Try applying for a broadcast franchise if you’re not well connected.

… Media should be protecting the public from the long arm of the oligarchy that dominates political and economic power here. However, that will not happen when a media company is also owned by oligarchs or businessmen who are aligned with them. Under such a situation public service will certainly give way to self service.

clearly what we need are conscienticized oligarchs and businessmen who truly want to make things right, pay back, pay forward, whatever, by sponsoring public affairs tv programs that would create a demand for politicized conscienticized media practitioners who will go beyond echoing press releases re “growth” and “good economic fundamentals” and who will know that it’s not good news when there are lots of buyers of philippine retail treasury bonds (worth P100 B issued last february) because all it means is that the aquino government is going the way of presidents past and getting us deeper and deeper into debt.  among other things.

i have a dream that one day, the big businessmen who invest multimillions in  mindless entertainment day in day out would take their corporate social responsibility to heart, truly put their money where their mouth is, by investing too, or investing instead, in public discourse and nation-building.

until then, don’t knock social media — blogs, facebook, twitter — because these are today’s mosquito press.

“big bad blogger”

Jagged Jaded Journalist and the Big Bad Blogger
Danilo Araña Arao

On a slow news day (Sunday), a journalist opts to write about an irresponsible blogger who allegedly conspired with a public relations firm to extort money from a restaurant owner.

It would have been a good story, except for three things: (1) No names were given; (2) minimal details were given on the circumstances behind the restaurant owner’s allegations; and, to make matters worse, (3) the author used only one source (i.e., the restaurant owner named Georgia) in writing her article.

In an article “Please Don’t Give Blogging a Bad Name” published in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine last January 23, journalist Margaux Salcedo interviewed an anonymous female restaurant owner who fell victim to a so-called Big Bad Blogger (BBB) and an unnamed public relations (PR) firm that offered to make BBB stop writing negative reviews about her restaurant “for a price.” The full text is available online at http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/sim/sim/view/20110122-315972/Please-Dont-Give-Blogging-a-Bad-Name.

Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t waste your precious time by calling your attention to an article which is better off ignoring. But the reactions of many bloggers on Salcedo’s article prompt me to give my two cents on the issue as there are angles that need to be discussed in the context of standards of responsible writing.

Bloggers have every reason to demand that Salcedo name names and not hide characters behind catchy aliases like BBB. If divulging the identity of the blogger and PR firm is impossible, then it is the responsibility of the journalist to explain why this is so.

At this point, I only need to briefly analyze the form and content to make better sense of the article’s shortcomings. In terms of content, the article provides very limited information and context. As regards the article’s form, Salcedo’s diction needs to be analyzed: For example, the use of the phrase “big bad blogger” gives the impression that the blogger in question is indeed being paid by a PR firm that, in turn, allegedly tries to coerce the restaurant owner to give money.

Salcedo is actually not sure of the connection between BBB and the PR firm. What more can we make of this paragraph written by Salcedo which is full of speculation? “Maybe Georgia is overreacting to a negative review. Maybe The Firm was only claiming to have relations with Big Bad Blogger for their own sinister purposes, unbeknownst to Big Bad Blogger. Or maybe the suspicions are true and Big Bad Blogger bows to the highest bidder. Whatever the case, one thing’s for sure: Georgia is now afraid of the blogging community. And this fear resonates among other restaurateurs who have had the same experience.”

In reading Salcedo’s article, “one thing’s for sure” (to borrow her words): Her uncertainty is due to lack of in-depth research as she failed to get the side of BBB and the concerned PR firm. Even if the journalistic output is packaged as a column article (Menu) in the Sunday magazine, it must be stressed that columnists need to share opinions based on research, particularly multiple sourcing.

A single-sourced article like Salcedo’s, not surprisingly, presents only one side of the story, important details of which are even wanting. There was no effort, for example to get the circumstances behind the restaurant owner’s reaction to the alleged negative review written by BBB.

Unlike some bloggers who argue that the article puts blogging (especially food blogging) in a bad light, I would rather reserve my judgment until more details are provided. While I share their assertion there are indeed irresponsible bloggers in our midst, I don’t think a badly-researched journalistic article like Salcedo’s serves as evidence of this.

The article mainly serves to titillate rather than inform, which can be perceived as “jagged” in the sense that it is of rough quality (or, simply put, a rough draft that should have been improved by meticulous researching and rewriting). One cannot be blamed if Salcedo is also described as “jaded” because of perceived exhaustion to unearth significant data.

Indeed, it is the jagged, jaded journalist who created the big bad blogger on a supposedly slow news day. The basic challenge for bloggers and other concerned readers is to objectively criticize it and not engage in subjective, knee-jerk accusations that do nothing in raising discourse to a higher level.

RH hurrahs! and a boo

the first HURRAH! is for dr. sylvia claudio, director of the u.p. center for women’s studies, who spoke up in congress at the 2nd deliberation of the house committee of population and family relations on the critical question of when life begins, and fearlessly unequivocally contradicted the notion that life begins at fertilization.

I have a prepared statement today but let me respond to the questions posed to the medical doctors by Representatives Biazon and (Anthony) Golez on the issue of when life begins.

I note that the Chair called upon me because Rep. Biazon also asked who does not believe life begins at fertilization. I do not, for two reasons. The first reason is that as an agnostic I do not subscribe to the beliefs of the Catholic Church. In this regard I would like to remind everyone that the Constitutional provision on religious freedom protects not just the right to belief but also the right to non-belief. …

The second reason I do not believe that life begins at fertilization has to do with my expertise as a medical doctor. . . . I would like to note that “conception” is not a medical term. The terms fertilization and implantation are medical terms and we can describe and explain these processes to lay people. Any scientific discussion requires the precise use of terms. The Philippine Obstetrics and Gynecological Society is correct when it states that the mainstream medical and scientific community agrees that pregnancy begins at implantation.

the second HURRAH! is for dr. marita v.t. reyes, chair of the women’s health care foundation, who recently gave a talk on “Biomedical Ethics and RH” in a u.p. forum. reyes points out that only upon implantation does the woman’s urine test positive for the hormone that signals a pregnancy.

Conception is usually equated with fertilization described as the union of sperm and egg. Clinically, however,conception is synonymous with pregnancy and is established by a pregnancy test based on the presence of the human chorionic gonadotrophin in the blood and the urine. This hormone is secreted by the chorionic villi after implantation of the embryo.

… Implantation is completed 14 days (2 weeks) after fertilization. Studies have shown that 45-70 percent of fertilized ova do not successfully implant. It is after implantation that individuation may be said to occur since twinning and fusion no longer take place. Some books refer to the fertilized ovum prior to implantation as a ‘pre-embryo.’ After implantation, it is referred to as ‘an embryo.’ Sometimes, debates are unresolved because of differences in terminologies! It is at implantation that the hormone, human chorionic gonadotrophin mentioned earlier, is secreted and is used as an indicator of pregnancy.

so there.   as far as these lady scientists are concerned, human life begins with implantation, which doesn’t happen until more than a week after fertilization, if at all there is an egg that is fertilized after unprotected (uncontracepted?) sex.   so what’s the harm of emergency contraception, or the morning-after pill, when one is not pregnant and just wants to make sure one does not get pregnant?

of course the anti-RH folks will insist that life begins with fertilization and any intervention in the reproductive process is morally wrong.   i say again, it’s for the woman to decide who to believe and what to do with her own body.

of course it would help if mainstream media would level-up the information-gathering, yes?   and lead discussions that would help women understand that they have options, and that would make the golezes and sottos in congress see that millions of impoverished men and women who may want to practice contraception (instead of having to resort to abortion) just can’t afford to buy condoms and pills when they can barely feed their families three meals a day.

this brings me to the BIG BOO! which goes to anc‘s the brew that guested paranaque representative roilo golez the other thursday but instead of truly grilling him on his anti-RH stance, the brewhas just let him go on and on — high population is good, contraceptives are already available, maternal deaths should be blamed on lack of doctors and midwives, at kung ano-ano pang kamachohan.   they should have posted a disclaimer: the opinions expressed herein are not those of the brewhas, or the network’s, unless of course anti-RH din pala sila.

sure they tried, pitifully unsuccessfully, to bring the talk to the level of the impoverished family, but golez was just too “good” — poor din daw siya noon but his parents had the right values, sent him to school, blah blah blah.   hay naku.   so the brewhas changed the subject na lang:  how daw kaya to produce more pacquiaos.

like i posted in facebook, the girls didn’t help the RH cause any.   they should stick to trivial issues for which knee-jerk reactions are good enough if they can’t be bothered to do their homework.   if they had bothered to check out golez’s website they could have at least maybe prepared an intelligent counter-attack.   or maybe not?

in last thursday’s episode the brewhas reacted to criticisms lightly, patawa effect — kesyo they didn’t wanna “mess with golez”…  he will “stoop to nothing”…   kesyo  it wasn’t supposed to be a debate, nothing wrong with letting the “charming” golez have his say…  maiba naman from “shrewish zealots” with “magical reasoning”…   ganoon?   ewww

so what do we make of one brewha’s  rant vs. tibaks and the suc budget protests.   i guess matapang lang sila vs. the left at pag di nila kaharap?   ‘yan ba ang girl power, anc style?   BOO!