Yellow Media will NEVER be fair to the Duterte government. Ever.

Many people have noticed over the past few days that the old yellow troll accounts on social media and the blogosphere have been reactivated. Someone is funding them again. Rappler and Inquirer are also now heavily censoring pro-Duterte comments on their websites.

This made me realize something—the yellow media will never be fair to Duterte. Ever.

The yellow media are a lost cause. It is time for the president's team to switch from a reactive approach to a proactive approach. The best way to counter the yellow media's black propaganda is not to keep trying to correct them (reactive), but to build a new communications infrastructure around President Duterte and his men that is completely independent of the yellow media (proactive).

President Duterte is an easy sell. People always want to see him and know what he's doing. He has his own crowd-drawing power. With internet technology and access to government channels, it is not impossible to build a communications infra large enough to counter the Yellow Ecosystem within a short span of time, say, 3-6 months.

(Read more about the Yellow Ecosystem here: http://grpshorts.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/looking-into-propaganda-machine-of.html)

The media networks of the large religious groups that support President Duterte like Igelsia Ni Kristo's Net 25, UNTV, Pastor Quiboloy's Sonshine Channel can also be tapped.

A big percentage of the content produced by the yellow media comes from announcements and disclosures of government agencies. If the government diverts this content to its own well-run news channel and website (including the government procurement notices and job ads), it can attract a big audience very, very fast.

There are so many people who are sick and tired of the toxicity, negativity, hypocrisy, and duplicity of the yellow media. Many of us would stop watching the news on ABS-CBN and stop reading Rappler and Inquirer completely if we had more alternative sources of news.

The hardworking, responsible, productive citizens of this country are longing for positive, constructive reporting. We want stories that help us learn more about the useful things that the government, police, and military are doing, like the 911 helpline, the OFW one-stop shop, the simplified business application and tax filing procedures, etc. We have already seen glimpses of this from video clips on YouTube. For example, when Sec. Art Tugade explained the root causes of the traffic problem in Metro Manila and his recommended solutions at the Senate, it was very educational, like a class on transport management. We need to see more of this type of healthy, constructive, informative, mentally uplifting content.

We have entered a once-in-a-lifetime period of genuine public service since the new administration took over, and it is a crying shame that the oligarch-backed media—now also the drug-lord-backed media—are trying to distort everything to obstruct the Duterte admin's ability to deliver the reforms and services that we Filipinos need. The yellow media and their backers, in their selfish obsession to take back the power that they lost after Duterte won, don't care if they destroy our country's reputation in the process and block the government's efforts to improve the lives of our countrymen. They just care about getting what they want. They won't stop, so the only thing we can do is walk away and leave them behind.

Sobra na, tama na, palitan na. Enough is enough. We slammed the door on Daang Matuwid during the elections, now let us slam the door on the destructiveness of the yellow media who feed us nothing but poison and hate. Sec. Martin Andanar, please give us a new well-produced primetime news program to watch and a new comprehensive news website to read so we can log off the yellow media once and for all. If you're concerned about criticisms on lack of editorial independence, please don't be. The world we live in today gives us vast access to information so we can decide for ourselves which version of the truth to believe. Editorial independence is a myth, anyway, because every journalist has his biases, whether he admits it or not. Besides, the yellow media's concept of editorial independence is so Eighties, like hairspray and shoulder pads. Most of them are stuck in a Martial Law time warp (including the younger journos whom the seniors have infected with their jaundice), so their causes revolve around a very narrow set of worn-out themes (i.e. censorship, ill-gotten wealth, a simplistic understanding of human rights). This outdated 1980's brand of yellow journalism is so pointless and counterproductive, it should be left behind to the dwindling few who refuse to move forward and embrace change. Magsawa sila sa ka-ek-ekan nila, basta tayo, move on na. Tara na!

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