We beg to differ.
In the days after the declaration of Martial Law, merely criticizing former President Ferdinand Marcos could get one picked up and there are claims that many of those picked up simply disappeared. Fear of speaking against Marcos back then was such that a friend’s mother (a college professor at a state university) buried several books…
Now that the Philippine government will be in an “all-out” war against the New People’s Army (NPA), the terrorist arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines, it is worth exploring some lessones learnt from the recent war that liberated Marawi City from similar terrorist elements. To be sure, a war against the NPA will…
The impeachment “trial” of Supreme Court Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno is an exercise that is political in nature — because it is a process conducted in and governed by Congress where popularity holds currency (in contrast to trials done in a court of law where standards to ensure logic and reason prevail are higher and…
Read More “CJ Lourdes Sereno faces the wrath of a Filipino public clamouring for her impeachment” »
The news websites of GMA7 and News5 published articles with the misleading claim that Washington based NGO Freedom House had published a report where it said that the Duterte Administration was employing “keyboard armies”. But no where in the Freedom House report titled “Freedom on the Net 2017″ was it specifically and clearly stated that the…
Read More “The Misleading Headlines of GMA7’s and News5’s “Gov’t Keyboard Army” Story” »
For all the calls for a crackdown on “fake news”, it seems even the world’s most respected “journalists” just can’t seem to help partaking in a bit of the troll party where all of this orginates and gets passed around. Within the last 24 hours, two seemingly respected personalities in the mainstream industry of conventional…
Read More “Mainstream media vs DDS bloggers: a ‘war on truth’ that could destroy both sides!” »
The key to sustained consistency in media practice (whether in mainstream or otherwise) is to compete on content and quality — not on narcissistic stunts and attention-grabbing circuses. On the mainstream front, this is how Rappler did itself in — because it made itself the news rather than focusing on just reported it. Of course…
Read More “Die-hard bloggers behaving badly: anti-‘disente’ taken too far” »
Singing karaoke-style is of course, a staple of Filipino hospitality. Quite a few Filipinos, I can imagine, will vividly remember being forced by their parents to, ignominiously, sing for a house guest. When Filipinos grow up, either karaoke machines, or on occasion, a live band, provides the means through which they can “showcase” their musical…
Read More “Duterte, Rappler, Utos ni bossing, and Tone-deafness” »
If Rappler people were true dyed-in-the-wool hipsters, believers in the real essence of “online journalism”, and secure in their organisation’s position as a self-described nexus platform for online “thought leadership”, then it wouldn’t matter to them how they are classified — much less even bothered the least bit by what “Die-hard Duterte Supporter” (DDS) bloggers…
Read More “Rappler contradicts its own brand story by clinging on to mainstream by-laws” »