Lecturing Sophia

You’re in a way already a media practitioner when you were born at Mt. Carmel Maternity and Lying-In Clinic near the San Jose Public Market. Because it was then when you first cried to your parents and to Dr. Rosendo Nueve and his assistants and communicated to us that you were alive. Your mother can be considered as a media practitioner too. Right after recovering from birth pangs and pains, she communicated to her co-teachers at Mabini I Elementary School about the good news of our dear newborn babe.

So I was not amazed anymore when you told me last night that you want to be a TV reporter or journalist. My dear, you would not be able to land on such prestigious network if you do not enroll or take any media-related courses. And when you do this, Sophia, you do not intend to follow your father’s (earlier) footstep with that silly dream of yours.

Remember, my dear, that I,- your father, is not a true blooded media practitioner since I do not have any formal schooling on journalism or mass communication unlike the rest of the anchors and DJs you love to listen to over the radio. Besides, I do not want to be remembered as a local radio announcer because I don’t possess a quality voice. I want to be remembered as a social communicator as a whole. Media is but a vehicle, a means or an instrumentality or a means of communication. But to tell you the truth, I don’t want to be closely and completely identified with the known media personalities I am telling you a while ago who are used by powerful elites, specifically politicians, for their selfish political purposes and agenda. Because to my mind and contrary to what I see from them, media is to communicate informational data, convey formational factors and promote transformational values. As simple as that, Sophia.

Your father in no way claims to be holier than those people, Sophia. As a person and as an accidental radio personality, I also have horns like a sinful devil. But these horns keep my halo,- like that of an angel, in proper place above my head!

Okay, okay, so you really want to be a media practitioner? Clarity before else is the most important thing whenever you face the microphone or a camera. Whenever we present issues over the air, what is said should be intelligible. Also, you must express everything in a light manner. You may sometimes inject some humor and rumor or be naughty at times, but over and above, those must be accompanied with meekness. It would indeed be a disgrace if our words were marked by arrogance, the use of bare words or offensive bitterness. Remember, when you are already a TV or radio personality, that what gives you opinion its authority is the fact that it affirms the truth,- an example of virtue, avoids peremptory language and makes no demands. Unlike words some politicians are using over the radio, specially nowadays.

You must also be peaceful without using extreme hurtful tactics and methods. Just be patient under contradiction and incline towards generosity. I am sure you want to ask this : “Why are those who talk over the local radio do not promote friendship and intimacy instead of hostility and divisiveness?” Yes, Sophia, what is to be aspired is,- and I won’t get tired of saying this again and again, what should unite us, journalists of Occidental Mindoro, our mutual adherence to common good and thus shun all self-seeking things.

When you are already in the “big league”, my dear, please do not be a social liability and an enemy of truth. Do not be a big shame to your father and a big discredit to this noble profession and sublime vocation.

Allow me to put everything in a capsule. Please turn to page 90 of the book “Media in Our Midst” by +O.V. Cruz, JCD,DD : “Let it be here explicitly and categorically stated that media’s fundamental allegiance is to truth – to nobody and to nothing else. In fact, media is at its best when it adores no “sacred cows”, it bows to no “superior humans”, it is blind to the “glitter of gold” and deaf to the “sound of silver”. Media practitioners themselves know this only too well. The moment media becomes the purveyor of part truths if not downright lies, this would be the height of the social liability it acquires, such as being an enemy of truth, it also becomes the enemy of the people, the cancer of society, the shame of its practitioners.”

This is what exactly happened to us in Occidental Mindoro, my dear. But they (the local media practitioners) are not alone to be blame. They are just corrupted by the selfish politicians in our midst. They are willing victims of this bad political system and culture. This I would not be tired of repeating.

But Sophia before taking up Mass Communication, get rid of you milk bottle first for in June, you are already in Grade One…

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(Photo from wikiwak.com)