If it is any consolation, many of us working in media do not know either why Sen. Bong Go is always in the news.
When he was special assistant to the president, I rationalized news outfits picking up his statements and photo releases as his being close to the president and having better access to him than the actual presidential spokesperson*.
We didn’t do it ourselves, but I often defended colleagues who did.
He might not have been officially authorized to speak but his pronouncements were often later confirmed by the presidential spokesperson or by someone else speaking for the Palace.
While the president's spokespersons often have to guess, sometimes incorrectly, the president's sentiments on an issue, Go does not have that problem.
As Inquirer columnist John Nery points out in a piece in February, "in [President Rodrigo Duterte's] absence, Sen. Bong Go, his personal aide of two decades and the erstwhile special assistant to the president, often serves, all at the same time, as source, bearer, and filter of the president's thinking."
Although now a senator, Go is still often with the president on his visits to military camps and at meetings of the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
He explains, in a column by The STAR's Marichu Villanueva, that he is at the IATF meetings "upon the request of the president to attend it as representative of the Senate."
The House of Representatives does not seem to have similar representation at IATF meetings, although this may be because members of the House have more local concerns that can be addressed at local IATF counterparts.
It may also be because none of its members are as close to the president as Go is.
Go is, in essence and in actual seating arrangement, the president's right-hand man and because of that reflected power, a more or less reliable source of information on the president, his condition, and his thoughts.
While this explains why media picks up his statements and photo releases, this does not mean that everything that he does or posts is news.
Maybe part of it is us being used to just picking up whatever he sends out and part of it is our fear of missing out on the engagement that photos of the president (on a motorcycle, say) will bring.**
These are calls that are beyond my power to explain but are not calls that have only been made during this administration.
Not everything he says or does is necessarily newsworthy or even praiseworthy, either, but that has not stopped us as an industry from publishing his press releases virtually as written.
Mar Roxas, when he was in the Aquino Cabinet and while he was running for president in the 2016 elections, enjoyed similar treatment. I know this because part of my job back then was to watch TV newscasts and pick which ones would be turned into stories for the news website.
Mar was a beat in himself and was hyped on state media often, although I cannot say that it was done as blatantly as it is being done now. He was also not immune to criticism or unflattering coverage.
In the run-up to the 2019 elections, Go was everywhere. From a meeting of the Mustang Car Club to the PBA, and it was clear then that more than just the administration making a push for him, many rich people wanted him to become a senator or to at least be seen as wanting him to become a senator.
As a not rich person, I cannot hazard a guess why they did. Just rich people things, I guess.
I am not schooled in journalism theory but even if I was, this is just one of those instances when theory falls apart in practice.
People who make these decisions have decided that this is how he will be treated and that really all there is to it.
Holding someone to account after conceding so much free press for so long is going to have to be a problem for the future because no standard solution exists.
Or maybe one does, but it is a solution that few of us — and I am not among those few — are game to try.
* Colleagues say the spokesperson was often out of the loop or was not as responsive to media queries
** I had a small side project on this but Go no longer posts photos of the president eating so it is dormant for now.
I'm also reminded of the media's fixation on Larry Gadon and his dumb antics.