Talk About Kettles Calling the Pots Black

IBLOG4: Leftist Journalist Luis Teodoro Urges Journalists to Blog, set examples online, lectures bloggers about ethics and professionalism!

Well so sorry, Mr. & Ms. Mainstream Journalist, but in case you've only noticed now, you lost your Monopolistic Voice of Omniscience years ago and never more shall Citizen Journalism surrender to the small, narrow vested interests that have controlled newspapers, television and radio in the world! Just as the metal engraver Johannes Gutenberg's marvelous technological invention of the moveable type press once empowered the translation and wide distribution of the Bible into German, English, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and dozens of languages to break the Roman Catholic Church's monopoly on Word of God, so too has the physicist Sir Tim Berners Lee's invention of the World Wide Web with its "moveable type" hypertext transfer protocol ("http") empowered Google's Blogger, WordPress, Multiply, Facebook, and hundreds of other free blog publishing services now broken the Main Stream Media's commercial hold on information and commentary.

Here are the funniest lines from professional CPP NPA front man, Luis Teodoro, echoing the tendentious and too-frequent pontifications of his colleague Vergel O. Santos (both of the leftist Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility) at Iblog4.

"Many of those who post information online are irresponsible," he said. "Sometimes, it becomes damaging. It disrupts the democratic dialogue."

Teodoro is proposing that "there should be a means of self-regulation" in blogs. "Journalists should be models online," he said. Be it a blog on political opinion or personal lifestyle, "the principles of journalism should apply."

"There should be verification and fairness even if it’s an opinion piece. There should be an effort to get the other side no matter how little the space you allot," said Ateneo de Manila University communication professor Chay Hofileña, who agreed with Teooro that journalists can set examples online.

Hofileña stressed that journalists should be very careful because the "the standards for a news reporter is higher." She said journalists should come up with more substantial articles online .

"Ethics should show in your blogs," Teodoro said.

AHEM! Didn't Teodoro use to edit and regularly contribute to Ang Bayan, the CPP NPA propaganda ragsheet--that paragon of democratic dialogue? Who knows, maybe he still does.

Next to the government itself, of which the Main Stream Media are virtually a part, I cannot think of a more corruption-ridden, unethical, unprofessional, disingenuous and commerce-driven bunch than the Philippines Main Stream Media. Hiding behind veils of objectivity to hide prejudice, ideology, selfish agendas and vested interests, using innuendo, libelous and scurrilous attacks, whilst piously defending press freedom, what right do these kettles have to call the pots black and then to charge for it.

Hahaha! At least when the bloggers use these same tactics they aren't hypocrites about it and expect everyone else to bow down before their "codes of professional ethics"--which in our Main Stream Media are followed more in the exception than in the rule.

Take the much maligned case of Brian Gorrell and his lurid gay screw-n-tell blog. Heck you can tune in to the same kind of ugly salacious cryptosexual clap trap on AM radio every morning without the honest disclosures of names, dates and places, of course, the better to lure the audience back day by day. You can read the same titillating, gossipy, giggly dick-headedness in the Lifestyle and Show biz columns of the biggest newspapers (like the Philipine Daily Innuendo and dozens of smaller look-alikes and wanna-bes)

For all their pious holier-than-thou attitudes, with their "higher standards of journalism" implemented by ever-so-bribable and brow-beatable editors running pretentious, tabloidish broadsheets and tv/radio talk shows driven by show biz gossip and the latest impregnations and scandalous lifestyles of the nouveau riche and infamous, most of the Main Stream Media are actually lower than the worst of the blogosphere.

The reason for this is simple: the blogosphere is freer, more open, democratic and inclusive, so our demographics are more truly reflective of the citizenry, and less prone to be controlled by narrow vested interests pretending to be objective or neutral. The blogosphere does not have to answer to the bottom line of the craven owners or the dictates of advertising.

You can blog to your hearts content without advertisements, as Philippine Commentary proudly does and always will!

Moreover, the Blogosphere has a superior economic model (transaction costs per megabyte per second are practically nil compared to the main stream). It also has a far better ecological model than the Main Stream. We do not pollute anywhere near printed newspapers do (which constitute the other half of the municipal solid waste stream that plastic is part of, and is equally destructive of the environment -- fact they desperately need to hide and try to.) Printed newspapers will be the first to go extinct in their current form. Once they enter the electronic domain, they lose a lot of their hold on the channels of distribution and control over opinion, commentary and counter-attack.

The Blogosphere is a much more level playing field than the Main Stream. Here, as I said myself during Iblog Two, MEMES RULE. Strong, viral ideas, fit to survive because they are powerful and right can defeat weak and stupid ideas that have for so long dominated in the Main Stream because there, near exclusive access to the Medium IS the Message, instead of the Meme being the Message!

I welcome so called journalists to this brave new world of memetics called the blogosphere. Bring your ethics. Bring your standards. Bring your professionalism. Bring your Mama! But what really matters here is whether your ideas can compete with others and win! Your bandwidth is my bandwidth. My Liberty is your Liberty. Leave your stupidities and inanities at the door, or bring them along and wallow with the rest of the warthogs (which is allowed!). Here we are equals, and you've just come to the party a little late. Now, there's a place at the table for everyone, but don't expect a high place and automatic respect just coz you're so used to one way conversations and call yourself some fancy name that really means nothing to most of us.

Show us the right stuff and be a good sport or go back to the media that is going EXTINCT!