Decay of Philippines journalism a result of 'journalists' being regarded like celebrity thought leaders

Filipinos sometimes imagine that just because they have access to so many newspapers, radio and TV channels, they will get an infinity of different opinions. Then they discover that things are just the opposite: the power of these loudspeakers only amplifies the opinion prevalent at a certain time, to the point where it covers any other opinion.

If a Filipino is not talented enough to be a novelist, not smart enough to be a lawyer, and his hands are too shaky to perform operations, he/she becomes a journalist. Filipino media journalists are miserable, edgy and tired. They’re always in the perfect mood for their own so-called “journalism”.

Myth is much more important and true than history in the Philippines. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is. Philippines journalism largely consists in saying “Lord Jones is dead” to Filipinos who never knew Lord Jones was alive. Filipino journalism is predominantly paltry and worthless. Its pretensions are enormous, but its achievements are insignificant.

The Filipino media/press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage. The image of the Filipino journalist as wallflower at the orgy has been replaced by the Filipino journalist as the life of the party.

So much for Objective Journalism. Don’t bother to look for it here–not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.

All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone’s feelings. To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worthwhile. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter. The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.


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