PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III on Wednesday lamented that majority of the media today publish innuendos and embellishments, instead of more important facts in a story.
“More often than not, the art of crafting headlines seems to favor embellishment and innuendo, as opposed to the facts. Some articles seem to be written with blatant bias, while others fail to adequately represent the situation accurately,” Aquino said at the Publish Asia Conference in the Manila Hotel.
Aquino said the entire situation is complicated further by the fact that these stories published also in print do not seem to adhere to any set standard.
Over the years, he said he has increasingly wondered about this trend in light of the fact that print’s greatest advantage is that it can tell the complete story, whether in one article or in a series, and have that read by a still-strong readership.
Aquino said it is in the distinction between opinion and straightforward news-telling that the newsmen’s profession is endangered.
“Sensational headlines and articles composed of controversial rumors, for example, might increase your circulation marginally today. What happens, however, when the people notice your tendency towards such, when they realize that your articles are entertaining, perhaps, but cannot be verified and consequently trusted?
“In the long run, will they not seek out alternative sources of information—sources that they know will tell them the truth?” Aquino said.
“It is my deepest hope,” Aquino told Filipino journalists, “that you will never forget this”•that, whether in the Philippines or elsewhere in the world, you live and work accordingly with the greater good of the public in mind,” he said.
He said that there has been a great shift away from the primacy of print to a 24/7 news cycle, where it only takes a single Tweet to break news”•where anyone can report on anything, at any time, and have it reach anywhere in the world.
These new forms of media challenge what print, at its best, is supposed to represent: depth and breadth, context, and a clear delineation between opinion and news, said Aquino.
“It is true that your job is much more complicated today because of the need to expand your operations to new media forms, which have their own limitations in terms of dissemination. At the same time, dissemination does not matter so much as the most basic responsibility, which is to deliver information”•information that the people can trust, can lead to fruitful discussions on issues of national and global importance, that can even lead to positive transformation. This is the value and the service that you must provide,” he said.
