The brawl involving journalist Mon Tulfo and celebrity
couple Raymart Santiago and Claudine Barretto at Terminal 3 of Ninoy Aquino
International Airport can be classified as unprincipled violence which offended
public morals and decency. They, who attained the status of a public figure,
are revered to and looked upon as role models. Off-screen or public display of
anger among celebrities can now go viral, especially in this age of the internet.
In this case, there is also another threshold of consciousness that significantly brewed
up to a new kind of revolution, that is, a revolution in social media.
News producers in the country have created a
rundown or lineup of newscasts to hold the viewers’ interest to keep them tuned
in. That riotous violence among celebrities made it to the top choice for
several days and the clip kept on reeling in on broadcast networks, over and
over again. But little did we know that there is another super-empowered individual,
the one who posted that short video clip in YouTube who provided a version of
the incident “as it happened” (absent the CCTV footage in the airport). This
individual is our main actor in this new revolution.
Howie Severino, Editor-in-Chief of GMA News
Online and who also hosted GMA’s I-Witness for more than a decade, gave a
one-day lecture about Media Advocacy in the Pursuit of Truth and Empowerment
during the 5th Mindanao Summer Institute of Journalism held at the
Ateneo de Davao University. He said, of all online Filipinos (30% of the
population according to him are online), 90 to 100 percent have already a
Facebook Account and 30 to 50 percent have Twitter. He said, the new media
landscape has created “super-empowered individuals”.
“Social media is a very important tool. Its
responsible use has not yet been widely discussed. We monitor social media very closely. There
is so much abuse going on now in Twitter and Facebook elsewhere. Since social
media is so new, there are neither rules nor clear standards of conduct that
we’ve known so far. We, in the mainstream media, don’t want the government to
even attempt to dictate us on what to do or impose rules on social media. But it
must have a standard, in the same way that television is governed by structures
or institutions to ensure compliance with those previously known standards”,
Severino said.
He said, there is already a revolution going on
which is the revolution of production of media. This refers to the transfer of
power from the few media practitioners to almost everybody. “All of you can now
be media producers. Whether you like it or not, you have it already in your
hands. If you have this little device (pointing to a cellphone with a camera),
you are already a potential media producer. This little device can produce
images or photos and videos. You can shoot and edit in smartphones and you can
now distribute”, Severino said.
Severino recalled: “I started in media in the
1990s and that was before the age of the internet. There was a very elite and
democratic media environment. We were only very few yet, very privileged. All our
media devices then were not only heavy but very expensive as well. In those
days, we cannot see camerawomen. Why? Who wants to carry a 15-kilo camera? But
now, everybody can already own a lightweight camera. Before, when you have a
good video footage, you have to rush to a TV network and plea that it will be
aired. But the video had to be pre-screened before the network will decide to have
it broadcast. But now, everything already becomes so easy. You don’t even need
to think about the TV networks anymore and that’s a transfer of power from the
few to the many”.
“There is also a revolution of expression which is
technology-driven. From betacams to camcorders, from nonlinear to linear edit
systems (or from analog to digital) from TV network to YouTube and the web
world, and from TV program to multimedia content. In the 1990s, when you edit a
video documentary, you need to rent an analog editing studio for P900 an hour. But
today, with video editing softwares in our computer, we can do the editing in
our bedroom, car or almost anywhere. Even if it will not be shown on TV, but
still, we can produce our own content, post it in the web or make a DVD out of
that”, he added.
“In the case of I-Witness, we make the content.
TV is just a platform of our content. Those that we can consider platforms are
TV, DVD, YouTube, web, mobile phones, movie theaters or classrooms. Again,
that’s revolutionary. We are now in the midst of media democratization and that
is across-the-board. We have democratized the power of content production. All
of these powers are already in everybody’s hands. It is no longer a fantasy to
make your own documentary”, Severino said.
Talking about responsibility, this may be
addressed to all media practitioners, including
Mon Tulfo. Severino said: “I heard so many comments and feedback about media
people becoming arrogant. I think the most important quality of a good
journalist is being respectful and decent. Being respectful would help you a
lot in your job because people will be very open to share any story with you.
That will make you a very effective journalist. Remember, you start with
information gathering and you will fail in your objective if people will not
open up. Be modest and humble because it’s the best thing to do. For practical
reasons, if people will feel you are approachable, they will readily share any
information with you. Sila na mismo ang magpapa-interview because they felt
being respected.”
No comments:
Post a Comment