Unpublished draft of history

I watched “Jingle lang ang pahina” (2012) last night — it was free for a limited time* —and I was amazed at their editorial team culture of basically doing what they wanted.

The documentary was done decades after the magazine and chord book first came out so there was a lot of reminiscing by writers, musicians, and artists who had accomplished so much by the time filming started.

I would like to think that years from now, the people in the newsroom will have fond memories too of these strange times that we are reporting the news in.

That we will have stories from before the time our idealism and and the brashness of our dwindling youth crash against the reality that we are working in a corporate news company and all that that means.

Manila Times columnist Ben Kritz offers a peek into that reality in his piece this week:

Any discussion of the media...must proceed from a perspective that media is a for-profit business. Any media entity, whether a giant TV network, daily newspaper or self-appointed social media 'influencer' works for revenue denominated in eyeballs, which we then can exchange for actual money from advertisers, sponsors and others looking for 'exposure.'

Thus, the priority for any media entity is to maximize the audience, to acquire the largest possible pile of eyeballs, if you will. That inevitably leads to certain biases; every media entity will slant to some degree in one direction or another depending on its sense of where consumer demand lies.

While we arguably have some editorial control, that, control comes to us from far beyond. Through the family that manages the company, and through the media conglomerate that owns it.

We are, in the end, and as just a statement of fact, just employees. Of some value but ultimately replaceable.

I am not saying this to whine or whatever. The situation is the same in any newsroom anywhere in the country save perhaps Rappler’s because their editors are also owners.

That is just how it is and how it has been even after the Philippine media became “the most free” in Asia.

Ultimately, whatever freedoms we enjoy are the freedoms we are allowed to have. It is inevitable that our editorial choices will differ from that of management and that is not a clash we are in any position to win.

We are not even in any position to get in the neighborhood of a clash.

That is the owners’ prerogative and privilege. Years ago and at a different media company, while stewing over a story that upper management had not liked, a colleague explained succinctly the following (relative) truth: Freedom of the press is for the owner of that press.

It is something that I have kept in mind for a while now and that has helped me come to terms with the innate contradictions of working in media, a supposed check on power and amplifier of unheard voices.

We** do not, of course, plan to give up this quixotic profession (at least not yet), but we have tempered our expectations.

These past few years, and years to come, have been and will be defining ones, not just for our individual careers, but for the nation and the people that we say that we produce stories for.

The best that I can hope for is that these years do not end too soon or too bitterly — for the profession and for our team — and that when we look back a decade from now, we will have more good memories than bad.

*Unlike us, who are limitedly free at this time

** Not a royal ‘we’