Negativistic media

President Aquino took the opportunity to complain against the ABS-CBN program right on the 25 th anniversary of the networks' TV Patrol, specifically against its anchor, former Vice President Noli de Castro. The President charged De Castro of “undue negativism” and “baseless speculations” during the anchor's program.

Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte followed up with a statement that Malacanang wants only “equal attention to good news” from the palace.

Politicians, whether in power or outside have the same complaint. Bias in reporting is always blamed for unflattering news but hardly can one find a politician who would also thank the reporter for airing the good news although reporters do not expect news subjects to thank them for the flattering news coverage.

In fact, ABS-CBN immediately issued a statement standing behind and in support of De Castro since it has an in-house Ombudsman to deal with what the company believes are biased reporting. By supporting De Castro, ABS-CBN tells the world the President's complaint is baseless.

Some media people, however, give the profession a black-eye by using their outlets to extort, but these are few in number and media organizations have a system of curtailing this practice. I was recently reading a report by the Negros Kapisasanan nga Mga Brodkasters sa Pilipinas on the complaint against our local broadcaster.

One thing politicians forget is the guiding rule in news reporting: “good news doesn't sell.” On the contrary, bad news sells a lot, especially if the bad news about a politician and public figures are horrendous. These are the stuff of sensational news.

Unless one is in the social, culinary arts or business page, the reporter seeks out what is out of the ordinary. Politicians and prominent and public personalities are the best source of news because what they do or not do affect public life.

Among media people, especially opinion writers the rule of thumb is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Those who comfort the comfortable are usually public relations media who are under the pay of their subjects.

The complaint about media people being negativistic arises from a lack of understanding of the distinction between a public relations man and the news people. The PR man's function is to present the best of his clients. He or she is paid to make the client look good in public.

The role of the media man, on the contrary, is to present things as he sees it without concern for the negative impact on the subject.

Of course, quite often politicians try to befriend media people to make them at least be “kind” or to avoid hurting their public image. Thus human relationship is vital to public figures if they want to get media to be “kind” to them.

Negative reporting is the first inclination of media people. Lecturers in journalism classes are fond of relating what makes for news. If a dog bites a man that is not news; if a man bites a dog that is news.

The government and those in power should not be onion-skinned. They should see the criticism or the negative report in a different way. Negative information they could not get from their PR people who have only good things to say. If they listen only to the good things about them they cannot make good decisions because they will be misled into thinking everything is all right.

Of course a media worker can exploit the bad things about a subject but this is a challenge to the PR man who should address the issue rather than rant and blame the media worker or bearer of bad news.

If the criticism or the negative report is untrue, that will die a natural death and in fact, erodes the credibility of the writer or the broadcaster. Some broadcasters, for instance, “plant” an issue and exploit it to the chagrin of the subject, but the public is more intelligent than some broadcasters think they are, like those who buy their air time or what is known in the media circles as “block timers.”

There are criticisms and there are criticisms. It is for the subject or the PR man to discern what is legitimate and what is not. Politicians especially should not get drawn into illegitimate issues because they can get mired in it.

Those in position of power, like the President, have under their command huge resources to counter negativist reporting but the best way of confronting negative reports is to present what is positive. The public is not overly swayed by negative reports unless these feed into their own biases or their agenda.

Sure, there is this Goebbelsian dictum that a lie repeated several times takes a semblance of truth and many can be made to believe. This is the danger.*

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