54. A weird week for news

Maybe it is the heat or something

I never formally learned the News Values — or, indeed, journalism — but even I can say that this has been a weird week for news in the Philippines.

Our news website alone is filled with enough oddity to make anyone feel that the simulacra is broken.

For example, a woman who seems to have been scammed by someone pretending to be WWE champion Roman Reigns while also pretending to be in a relationship with her brought her troubles to one of the Tulfo instant karma radio shows for redress.

Her complaint, though, was against the courier company that was supposedly holding a package that Reigns had sent her despite her already paying P15,000 to have it released.

In that package, she said, was a SIM card that she could use to communicate with Reigns, who is not allowed to talk on the phone because of pro wrestling rules.

Also over the weekend, a story on supposed friction between media and the director of a documentary on Vanessa Hudgens’ attempt to reconnect with her Filipino roots.

Supposedly, the director — who is also a special appointee of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. for creative communications — cancelled Hudgens’ one-on-one interviews with the press and told them to go away.

Incidentally, the director is married to a popular vlogger who eventually ended up getting a one-on-one interview with Hudgens.

It happens. But what has made this whole episode particularly weird is how a room of reporters couldn’t seem to piece together what exactly happened. Our showbiz section has one version of events, entertainment portal PEP.ph has another, as does probably every other website in the Philippines but few people seem to want to go on record to say what really happened.

Reporting on the issue has been, as a friend said, “beyond Rashomon” and, while interesting and entertaining, has not really told us much.

Maybe it is April Fool’s Day or Mercury in Aries, things have felt a little too out of control of late.

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• Further in odd news, the National Water and Resources Board is considering banning commercial car washes and discouraging filling up swimming pools to help Luzon avoid a water shortage.

• The report posted by The STAR newspaper and by One News mention that these are some of the options that the board is looking at but does not mention if letting golf course grass turn yellow — Metro Manila has several of them — is among those options. Probably not, though. We have to keep up appearances after all.
  

• Still also weird: Elon Musk’s plan to make the blue checks strictly for paying subscribers seems to have backfired.

  When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he said he wanted to protect its place as a “digital town square,” where ideas from all corners of the internet could flourish. But soon, if you want your voice to really be heard in the town square, you’ll need to pay. (Vox)

  
  Meanwhile, Twitter has granted requests from the Indian government to block more than 100 accounts, including those of journalists.
  

• Serious news on how hot it has been in the Philippines: Primary and secondary education teachers report the intolerable heat is making it difficult for students to focus on their lessons or to even come to class at all.
  

• Finally, some good news: Strikes and unions work, according to this Bloomberg Law report noting the highest pay increases in labor contracts since the 1990s.
  
  Workers in southern Luzon have petitioned the regional wage board to increase the daily wage across the region to P750 and are planning a massive protest on Labor Day, May 1 to push for better pay.