Reality check

A professional colleague who just arrived on the island was recently quoted as asking fellow reporters whether media personnel get movie passes from the local branch of the Hollywood Theaters. Everybody laughed. Those not in the media industry would miss the joke, but yes, in places where news and press releases furiously compete for space and air time, media personnel are relentlessly wooed by PR personnel and spin doctors, and are softened up with free meals, gift certificates, bottles of wine and cheeses, little knick-knacks and, of course, movie passes and season tickets to the theater—all with the end goal of getting a chunk of that valuable real estate in newsprint or airtime. And Christmas? The stream of gifts becomes an avalanche, inundating media offices with a whole slew of goodies ranging from expensive gift baskets and boxes of chocolates and other toothsome goodies, to the latest technological gadgets, household whatnots, innumerable umbrellas, and boxes and boxes of bubbly, among others. I tell you, if the journalist’s code of ethics could talk, it would have torn its hair out and screamed, “Enough!”

It was admittedly nice to be on the receiving end of such unceasing and unlooked for bounty but it was always a constant battle among us how to get around these gifts without putting a toe beyond the strict and stringent line drawn by our profession’s code of ethics. As editor for Today, my colleagues and I at the editorial desk presented a broader—and motionless—target, with press relations officers of multinational companies pelting our desks with a sundry of gifts-cum-press releases. It need not be said then that newspapers, radios and televisions had to adopt policies on how to handle these gifts without violating the code. For most, food items presented no headaches as some would just distribute the goodies among all personnel or, if not immediately perishable, keep them until there is a sizeable collection and then donate them to a charitable institution.

More problematic, however, is money and yes, I have encountered such situations where a substantial amount would be tucked within the folds of a press release. For situations like this, the cash would usually just be donated to a charity in the name of the person (usually a politician) who sent the press release, with the added condition that the receiving party will forward a note to the original giver acknowledging receipt of the cash. Of course, not everyone is scrupulous about doing this, so you have editors and reporters who are on the payroll of politicians, companies, and crooks.

The point, though, of this long-winded introduction is that this practice does not seem to have reached the CNMI yet. Ever since I came on island, we have yet to get a press release affixed to a potted plant or a basket of bread. Except for the rare multinational company whose PR work is being handled by an off-island PR firm, most people on the islands are not, for lack of a better phrase, media savvy. Nor do they welcome media scrutiny. On the contrary, one is apt to be treated with, in some cases, indifference, in most, wariness, and in a few, outward hostility. In fact, some offices act as if they are doing the media a favor by even coming out with press statements, as if we owe them for giving us material.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it makes it easier on the media as we do not have to wrestle with ourselves whether to accept or refuse a gift since the situation never presents itself. (One can’t help but question, however, the strength of a value that is never tested. Claiming to be celibate doesn’t really mean anything if nobody wants to have sex with you in the first place.) Still, this situation of being the wooer instead of being the wooed was somewhat disconcerting the first time around and, from time to time, one can’t help but be wistful for those good ol’ days when being fawned upon was taken as a matter of course and a press ID was enough to get you off very sticky situations. I was saved, though, from something like nostalgia and regret when I came across David Shaw’s column on the Los Angeles Times, which we reprinted on our Wednesday edition this week. Saying that now is not a good time to be a journalist, Shaw enumerated not only the more than 50 media personnel who have died in Iraq since the start of the war, but also the 47 line-of-duty deaths of journalists worldwide this year world, not to mention the increasing incidences of government crackdowns on the media in such diverse countries as Russia, China, and Turkmenistan. In the last three months alone, at least three media personnel—a photographer, a journalist, and a radio commentator—were killed in the Philippines while in the line of duty. I knew one of them. I tell you, that was enough to jar me back to reality. Which is, despite the unglamorous treatment that journalists get here, it is not such a bad thing compared to the tribulations facing my colleagues in other parts of the globe. As my journalism professor was wont to say, one need only accept the fact that these are all just part of our job—and one must learn to accept the hazards that goes with the territory. And if my next potential interviewee hangs up on me, I need only remember that all I got was a ringing eardrum and not the sight of a gun trained on my head to appreciate how lucky my colleagues and I are to be here in the CNMI.

(The views expressed are strictly that of the author. Vallejera is the editor of the Saipan Tribune.)