Journalism and the Challenge of Consumerism

Photo courtesy of Mel Caspe

Journalism and the Challenge of Consumerism

J. Colima Bajado

We are already aware that the lives of our journalists are not of a haut monde. First and foremost (that’s the cliché), we get less. More than that, the word “libel” makes our world perilous. But libel is nil compare to the death-defying moments we’re involve in.

It is nearly two years ago when the country was declared the worst place for the journalists, elsewhere in the world. It was after the killing of a significant number of journalists in Maguindanao, which the case until now, sad to accept, still unresolved.

In the advent of a gratuitous upsurge of the prices of our staple needs, all of us are writhing. Juvenile criminals are becoming common today. To boot, a handful of Church ministers (when I speak of Church, I speak of all denominations) are challenged and doubted to be victimized by the virtue of consumerism. Last school semester, I attended a graduation ceremony in a theological school and the message of the Keynote Speaker was hearted in the challenge to the priesthood by the (mis)virtue of consumerism. It was a very inspiring speech that hit not only the graduates, but also the invitees of the said event. And in this challenge of consumerism, our journalists, just like anybody else, are of no excuse.

Why? Because journalists are also human. We also mull over the welfare and comfort of our family. We also eat. We also purchase this and that. And in effect, some of us are also lured into the charms of money. In exchange of assassinating the character of a political foe, if one political figure or a person in authority would give us 30 thousand pesos per month, as it is in some reported cases today, would we think twice? Some resist, some don’t. This is the challenge of consumerism, exchanging self respect and dignity to material glory.

I do not wish to hand and point Polano and Polana who are ensnared in the fangs of a consumerist society. I just want to remind them that writing (or journalism for that matter), is a vocation. Just like the principles of priesthood, teaching, and medicine- we go into these not because we want to be rich, but because we want to serve.

This, some of us forget. How can we not, if we continue to neglect the tenets of this noble profession? Yes, I call it a noble profession, just like teaching. It is those people who forget this nobility that are no less than what the Greek word mōron means. Which, hard to admit, some of us really are.

How to stand this challenge then? We must remember the 3 responsibilities that were taught to us, as in the words of our national Artist, F. Sionil Jose.

First, we must “get to the truth and tell it plain if you are a journalist, with the frills and colors of art if you are a creative writer”.

Second, “emphasize the obvious, particularly in the context of what we are.”

And finally, “and the most important rule is for (us) to stay alive.”  What is meant by “stay alive” is, we should “write about danger but protect (ourselves) from it.” And also by staying alive is by making our writings lively. Some of our writers are deadly boring; some, simply bad.

And yes in addition, as journalists we should not be irate of criticisms. It is from criticism that we start discerning our faults, and find solutions to our weaknesses. Rather than taking criticism as a loss, we should “profit from it.”

Sometimes we are miffed with the fact that very few of our people today are reading us. Worst, we might gasp and eventually lose breaths if we see our faces together with our articles being crushed when the newspaper is used in packaging bulad. This is one of our shared plights to our people: read us!

Time has honored the truth that writers’ life is difficult, for writers make a little. But to underscore, let us be minded again that writing is a vocation that seeks truth, truth, and nothing but the truth. People who slander just because they are paid and allow themselves to be captives of perjury, has no place in journalism. They must be gunned down in line with their co-felons and co-ignoramuses, guarantors of imprudence!

Yes, writers’ life is not easy. That is why we are considered as people who invites and enjoys misery- masochists, so to speak. But I would rather be a masochist, than a bloody liar. ###

Published in Gahum Weekly Vol.2, # 23.