Here we go again. It is Part 2 because Part 1 abruptly ended after the DDS Bloggers disintegrated because of internecine rivalry. It is interesting to see where they landed six years after.
Recall how the public began to detest mainstream media as then candidate Rodrigo Duterte’s popularity grew exponentially leading to his victory in the 2016 election. The first President from Mindanao who had no previous history of running for and winning a national office was catapulted into the Presidency.
His social media strategy was the product of Nic Gabunada’s work during the campaign. Duterte was the candidate who tapped directly into the social problems besetting overseas Filipino workers. Peace and order problems in general, the burgeoning drug problem in particular.
The OFW vote cemented Duterte’s win in the tightly fought race against Mar Roxas and Grace Poe. Facebook exploded in terms of number of users and popularity as a blogging platform.
Martin Andanar was appointed to head the PCOO. Andanar was a broadcaster at TV5 and Radyo5. He pioneered in utilizing Facebook’s livestream feature as a news delivery platform with his News5Everywhere. It was Andanar who tapped into the then fledgling blogging network of pro-Duterte partisans. Ironically, some of those who became DDS Bloggers were in the opposition’s camp. They eventually “evolved” to being pro-Duterte after the President was inaugurated.
Six years later, the DDS Bloggers have become factionalized due to internecine warfare from 2017 through 2019. They went through a procession of patrons. Some ended up with contracts from government departments. But their access to the President ended in 2017. There was no more Christmas party at the Malacanan Golf Club that year and no more interaction with Duterte since then.
The bone of contention between bloggers and journalists is primarily credibility in terms of education and experience. Old school journalists had to go through four years of a journalism or communications course. Then another ten to fifteen years in the salt mines of newsrooms before making it as an editor.
Nowadays, you can get a Reuters Digital Jouranlism Certificate for free after passing their online course. WordPress has made it easy to put up a website/blogsite. You can go live or post videos to both Facebook and YouTube. Twitter has its Spaces, an audio-only livestream platform which it copied off Clubhouse. There are a plethora of possibilities with the platforms available. It is unlike before when there was only print and broadcast and you had to put in your time before you achieved any feasible measure of making it as an anchor or a columnist.
Mainstream journalists have jumped in on the bandwagon, at least those who are on the frontlines and are social media savvy. Today it is about number of followers, clicks and shares. It can all be quantified. But there is also the issue of bias seeing as how “journalist-activists” do not practice a basic tenet of journalism, which is objectivity. It used to be just “spinning the story” but it has now evolved to outright bias as political divisions widen.
The more serious issue is bloggers/vloggers masquerading as trolls. They are everywhere and spin everything into a spliced version of reality. This kind of content abounds in YouTube. It is basically a video tabloid, replete with sensationalist clickbait.
Daphne Osena-Paez in her Manila Times column writes:
“Disinformation” is the new heresy. Some high priests of journalism are outraged to find the sanctity of their profession suddenly challenged and held accountable by social media. Simply put, we are not used to being questioned or our biases checked. I say “we” because once upon a time, I too covered Malacañang during the time of President Fidel Ramos. It wasn’t a degree in journalism or communications that got me in as an ABS-CBN reporter. I majored in urban studies and art history, and worked in urban and environmental protection in local communities. Broadcast media was an accident. And I learned the ropes while working on the field. As a young reporter, I was granted permission to cover the president in Malacañang for seven months with a confirmation letter from my news desk. But I was never inducted into the official Malacañang Press Corps. Even then in the late 1990s, there was a hierarchy.
Malacanan is at the top of the heap as far as beats are concerned because of close proximity to the President and other powers-that-be. It is a status symbol both professionally and personally because it means that the reporter of the media outlet assigned to Malcanan is likely to end up as an editor or even editor in-chief. This is as far as print media is concerned.
NUJP Statement
The leftist-militant NUJP has also weighed in with their statement. The truth is both sides are guilty of the accusations they level at each other. Access to publishing and broadcast platforms have opened the Pandora’s box. The hierarchy of rules and the pecking order which were the norms before have gone straight into the garbage bin.
The PCOO’s social media policy evolved out of mainstream media’s biased coverage of the President. Remember how Duterte mixed it up with Rappler’s Pia Ranada at one presser about her piece on the Philippine Navy frigates ordered from Hyundai? The belligerence of media and the opposition Senators then who jumped on the story is what made Bong Go a Senator.
To my mind, it eventually had to come to a hilt. It began in 2016 and continues through to today. Mainstream media’s bias against Marcos and Duterte is evident. Just look at how mainstream media was focused on Leni Robredo and her candidates throughout the campaign. It did not do much good as she still lost. By a landslide in fact. Nowadays, it is not only mainstream media which weighs heavily on influencing the public but social media as well.
It all boils down to what is fact and what is the truth? I go back again to what the Iron Butterfly said; “perception is real and the truth is not.” It is all about perception. That is what the game is. Our elected officials should not be cry babies over trolls by being too onion-skinned and exerting efforts to put them inside a box.
Newsflash. The box is open and trolls are part of the game. But not all netizens are trolls. There are more legit netizens who express their opinion on issues on social media than there are trolls. They are actually a good barometer or portent of things to come. The basis is not analytics but the logic of their arguments.
In this present environment, the burden falls on the public again to be the judge. What is evident is they will no longer swallow anything rammed down their throats. It depends on what their perception of the truth is. This is why the opposition insists that they still won even if they lost the election. The claim is now 31M Filipinos were not in their right mind voting for Marcos-Duterte.
What is for sure is it cannot be a free-for-all. At this point, mainstream media’s credibility has taken a huge beating, along with the opposition. It was they who drew the line and chose sides which is why we now find ourselves at this juncture. It is all about money and power and if you think about it, the journalists are just the pawns of their patrons. The final decision rests with the public so it is up to mainstream media to decide how they will play the game from hereonend.
On the part of the Marcos administration, they are working with excess baggage which is why their credibility is important. The President-elect has a credibility problem as a result of his father’s past record as President. His communications and messaging strategy are essential to maintaining whatever goodwill has been given him as the duly-elected President. He cannot afford to waste any drop of it on a policy which goes out of the ordinary or appointments whose integrity and credibility are questionable.
Perhaps, we should go by what conclusion PRRD eventually came to. He did not rely on the bloggers nor courted the approval of mainstream media. He just went straight to the public and brought the issues before them.
But of course, BBM is not PRRD. So there.
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