Overkill
Media is funny. Obviously, not all the time, but I must say, very many times.
A public thing and invested with the sublime and delicate duty to report the truth in the highest standards of objectivity and fairness, it plays a precarious role as it has to contend with a swarm of demons, both big and small.
It has to gather data and make stories everyday, verify the facts, process them for presentation, hope that they attract attention and sell. Deadlines have to be set and met, and the balance sheet should be in the black, not red. It’s both public service and business, and the right blend has to be discovered.
It’s this nature and character of its work that gives rise to the possibility of shallow, incomplete, one-sided reporting, and the often irresistible temptation to indulge in sensationalism and other gimmicks to grab attention from people.
There’s always the tendency to improvise, to exaggerate, to emit instant, not well-thought-out knee-jerk reactions to news events. The line between straight news and opinion, between reporting and taking sides is often blurred.
And worse things can happen, as questionable ideological motives and hidden agenda of some media practitioners can come in, coloring the media’s perspectives. This has happened before. It continues to happen today.
How many times some of us, who have the inside track of a particular story, would say the reporting did not hit it bull’s eye. In fact, often we would say not only was it incomplete, but it already contained distortions and biases if not outright lies and malice.
For sure, this is not unique only to the media. Everyone of us is subject to more or less the same constraints, limitations and pressures. But the media suffers them a lot more. We therefore have to understand it more. We have to help it in any way we can.
But those in media should undertake a rigorous and abiding sense of self-examination and checking. It’s nice to know that many outfits have installed appropriate offices of the ombudsman and the like to carry out this internal task. We just hope they fulfill their duties well.
Thing is with the recent predicament the Church is having, what with all these allegations of sex scandals involving some members of the clergy in some countries, I get the impression that the media is making things worse not only for the Church but actually also for everyone.
Clearly, the scandals are serious. They cry to heaven for justice. And the Church authorities are doing their best to grapple with the issue. It’s crucifixion time for the Church.
But now there are clear attempts to corner the Pope himself in these scandals. And other wild accusations and claims are made. Someone even made the suggestion that because of these scandals, religion should also be eliminated. Religion only distracts us from our real problems, he said.
This is an overkill!
I thought the world is big enough to accommodate all sorts of people, and we just have to learn to be tolerant with each other, no matter how different and in conflict our views may be. But no. The press, portions of it, seems to give normality to some intolerant voices.
I’m afraid the media continues to play the whole thing up, often engaging in nitpicking and fault-finding. There seems to be some kind of feeding frenzy over the Church predicament, a gloating over the pains and hurts of an entity with long standing in the world.
It would now seem that the Church has absolutely nothing good to offer to mankind, that it has always been a villain, a fox dressed in sheep’s clothing. The turn of events seems to reveal an agenda to destroy the Church. I suspect there’s a powerful group behind all this.
I always thought it’s most unkind to kick someone when he is already down and in agony. But it seems this perversion is now the new normal promoted by some parts of the media, especially the foreign ones, now unashamedly showing fangs and claws and spitting cobra-like venom everywhere.
On one hand, I get amused to watch all these developments. It’s funny to see a kind of combat between two different parties, acting on two different levels, using different weapons, and aiming at different objectives. It’s a terrible mismatch.
On the other hand, I sink into pity and sadness to realize this is happening in our supposedly knowledgeable and already mature world of ours. We all need to get a good grasp of the situation!
(Fr. Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City. Email: roycimagala@gmail.com)
