Tradcols

Columnists write about “tradpols” (traditional politicians) all the time, and they should.

But who’s writing about the “tradcols” (traditional columnists)?

Who’s checking their own brand of patronage politics — dispensing or withholding favors, using their positions in, and the resources of the Fourth Estate, at the expense of the public trust?

In this election season, you’re seeing them again, and the woodwork from which they came. They devote entire columns promoting, or shooting down, the candidacies of their clients and their adversaries, living on the generosity or fear of those who do not know better.

They are, plain and simple, “blocktimers in print”.

And newspapers that rail and moralize against blocktimers on radio should perhaps first sweep their backyards of this “turd force”.

Onion-skinned blind item

Or, maybe we should call this portion (which we hope to make a regular feature) “AN EYE FOR AN EYE”.

We hope media can blindly take as good as it can blindly give:

This editor of a local daily came uninvited to a Capitol function on August 6, 2004. The editor got so drunk that the editor started to become a little loud, picked a fight with a former governor (a former news source), and generally became a nuisance. Perhaps seeing that the people were beginning to stare at her and speak in hushed tones, she made her dramatic exit. How dramatic? Very dramatic. She grabbed an unopened bottle of wine and ran away with it.

Surveillance camera tapes and several witnesses (both from the media and from other people on the Capitol guest list) attest to this public nuisance and “theft”.

Blind items are not journalism

One of the more cowardly aspects of newspapering is the “blind item”. Every day, Cebu dailies dish out rumors involving unnamed personalities allegedly caught in some unverifiable fiasco, written almost always with an unmistakable smirk.

The trouble is, in doing so, they’re smirking at the very core of their professional ethics.

After all, what purpose does the “blind item” serve? If the item true, it is media’s responsibility to report it, without equivocation, without resort to innuendo.

If the item is true but cannot find print in the news pages because it involves the private lives of public figures, or because no public interest is served by publishing it, then printing it — whether in the form of news or a blind item — breaches the ethics of journalism.

If it is written as a blind item because its truth cannot as yet be verified, then it is pure laziness to print the rumor and pass it off as a newspaper item, instead of getting one’s hands dirty trying to get confirmation.

Newspapers demand the guarantees of press freedom. But every day, they are proving that they do not need those guarantees, because they skirt responsibility for their statements simply by resorting to the blind item, for which there is no need to discover the truth, to strive for accuracy, or to bear the responsibility for, and consequences of their actions.

That, you must admit, is cowardice. No wonder no one has ever won the Pulitzer Prize for writing blind items.

Maning fires back

I suspect that if Maning Guanzon weren’t an architect, he would have been in a profession that involved the use of his mouth (and his legendary temper) instead. He has the talent for coming up with the most quotable quotes, especially in response to the most ridiculous claims.

In response to the accusation of former Senator Sonny Osmena that the pieces of structural steel used at the CICC were leftovers from the South Reclamation Project, I remember he said: “Sus, Ginoo, intawn. Wa ma’y structural steel didto!”

Yesterday, to the claim of the Fire Marshall of Mandaue City that the fire sprinklers didn’t work (without even asking for a demonstration of the sprinkler system), he fired back: “Dili man na mogana kung tan-awon lang. Dubduban na ug kayo, di kay siga-an sa mata.”

Haha. So there you are. A fire sprinkler system wouldn’t work if you just glare at it. Even, it would seem, if you had fire in your eyes like Maning Guanzon does.

Sprinklers at CDN

From SunStar today, a gracious editorial saluting the people and the moving spirit behind the success of the 12th Asean Summit, and an unexpected plug for this blog from Bong Wenceslao.

From CDN, an itch that needed to be scratched, nitpicking through a dubious story about the CICC’s sprinkler system. Sorry, no link here. Maybe CDN was too ashamed to post the story online. Bottom line: Can a sprinkler system be tested just by looking at the spouts? Apparently, CDN thought so, considering the prominence they attached to the story in print.

Oh, well, old habits die hard. Especially, I heard, at CDN. But no, don’t get me started on editors there. Because while I have enough stories to fill this blog for the rest of the year, we should keep this blog PG-13.

Suffice it to say that the new CDN offices at the North Reclamation Area have an extremely efficient sprinkler system. Sometime early this year, after they moved in, strong rains gushed through their roof, and damaged the computer of their former reporter, Kathy Navarro. I’m not making this up. The Inquirer admitted as much. See a previous blog entry.

So I guess CDN is the expert on sprinkler systems.

Post-summit accounting for journalists

Editorials and columns have called for a “post-summit” accounting of expenses incurred by the government during preparations for the 12th Asean Summit.

In today’s editorial, SunStar said that “summit organizers and others that used public funds, from line agencies to the Capitol to the cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu, will now have to make a public accounting, tedious and painful (though) the task maybe.”

Without their having to say it, that is what the law requires, and what the public can expect.

The people, however, are entitled to more than an accounting of funds. Journalists, commentators and opinion makers, too, are accountable to the public for every word they say or write. The business of informing the public, after all, is imbued with the highest public interest.

Lest the media be accused of double standards, therefore, an accounting should be made of the following claims:

1. The CICC was finished ahead of the original dates of the summit. All opinion makers who said it wouldn’t be should account for their statements.

2. The roof of the CICC did not fall on the heads of the Asean Summit delegates, contrary to the fears of the late great Max Soliven.

3. The airconditioning at the CICC did not pose any problems as it was installed, completed and running well ahead, even of the original summit dates. Mr. Leo Lastimosa, therefore, should account for his column on the matter. In fact, the common complaint during the summit was that the airconditioning was too cold.

4. Contrary to the claim of Mr. Lastimosa that not one of the Asean ministers would ever set foot (“di makataak”) on the CICC, all of the heads of state of the Asean countries and dialogue partners, including their foreign ministers, came to the CICC, and made good use of its facilities.

5. On the whole, the Asean Summit hosting was a success, and even made us proud to be Cebuanos. The doomsayers should account for their dire predictions and their worst unanswered prayers.

“Cuentas claras preservan la amistad”. To be entitled to the public trust, the media should also do some post-summit accounting.

Journalism is not for crybabies

Personally, we’ve been witness to so-called journalists who couldn’t take as much as they could give. Columnists, commentators and opinion makers who cry “foul” when news sources react with equal force to their bludgeonings. So-called “journalists” who would fry us all but themselves can’t take the heat that cooking basically entails.

Today, Jerry Tundag of The Freeman, in another searing column, calls the “class suit” filed by journalists against the First Gentleman (in reaction to a series of libel suits the latter filed against journalists), a “black eye” on journalism, one that is undoubtedly self-inflicted.

Jerry is essentially saying: If you can’t stand the heat, consider doing the laundry instead.

Thank you, Jerry. You’ve expressed so eloquently the precise sentiment that moves this blog.

Nit-pickers are liable to get lice

I couldn’t have expressed it better than SunStar columnist Frank Malilong did in today’s column.

In the days leading up to what is looking to be a successful 12th Asean Summit, there were those who “nit-picked” and those who saw the bigger picture. There were those who looked through a microscope to find faults (and leaks), and those who saw through a telescope, to the future of Cebu beyond the Asean Summit.

Frank also gave sage advice to the Governor. Ignore the critics (for whom no monuments will ever be erected), and just forge on. We’re likely to take that advice. From now on, we will not get mad. We’ll just get even, and give as good as we’re taking, here on Onion-skinned.

CICC’s strange newfound rah-rah people

So we can all agree, after all.

The CICC is a beautiful structure, and its construction was an engineering feat the likes of which Cebu had never known.

After its editor picked a fight with them, SunStar Cebu cited the builders of the CICC as “Citizens of the Year”.

CDN called the CICC a “resplendent sight” on the 12th Asean Summit’s opening day, despite the reported lack of a fire inspection certificate. (Of course, CDN omits to mention that it had been occupying its new offices at the North Reclamation Area for a full nine months before it was finally issued an occupancy permit. Is there an inspection for double standards?)

I don’t know if Leo Lastimosa has taken back his put-down that the facade of the CICC is “mura’g dagway sa yawa” (like the face of the Devil). But, as a texter aptly pointed out, that’s one thing over which we can never argue with Leo Lastimosa. The Devil hasn’t shown his face to us; apparently the Devil has, to Leo Lastimosa.

But whatever bedevils this sad few, the verdict is in: CICC looks great, and it makes us proud to be Cebuanos.