Not being a journalist is no excuse for peddling fake news

SEN. Bam Aquino asked Mocha Uson why she had not sought the side of the people she castigated in her blog. “I’m not a journalist, po,” she repeatedly said “Ang ginagawa ko, di po ako journalist...” -- Mocha Uson, PCOO assistant secretary who also writes a blog, during Senate hearing on bill seeking to criminalize fake news THERE’S no universally accepted definition of a journalist. Standards and definitions vary. Each group or sector engaged in communication or with media has its own concept of what a journalist is.

Even courts. In the 2011 ruling of an Oregon federal judge, seven requirements were laid down for one to be deemed a journalist to enjoy the protection of a shield law for media. Montana blogger Crystal Cox, who was sued for calling a lawyer a thug and a thief, was not a journalist, he ruled. Archaic definition, snorted some journalists.

Mocha Uson, a blogger who became an assistant secretary in the Presidential Communication Operations Office (PCOO), wouldn’t pass most of the U.S. judge’s criteria. Under local standards, she insisted she was not a journalist, even using it as excuse for not behaving like one. In this week’s hearing on the bill seeking to criminalize fake news, Sen. Bam Aquino asked Uson why she had not sought the side of the people she castigated in her blog. “I’m not a journalist, po,” she repeatedly said. But journalist or not, it’s wrong for her to use fake news in her blog.

As a PCOO official, it was incongruous and weird. No, Aquino didn’t tell her that but maybe he should have.

The issue is fake news: producing or trafficking fake news is wrong. Will the proposal before the Senate committee not impinge on free speech and free press? Will it work? Uson life way simpler and unpretentious. It will cause us to choose only what is essential and truly lasting and forsake those that are only skin deep or temporal. We can be freed from the threat of rejection or the pain of abandonment by dying to and denying ourselves of the pleasure, recognition, and glory that this world can offer. We will no longer care if people pay tribute to us or honor us for our works; all we will care about is whether God is pleased with our thoughts and actions. If such selflessness prevails in the nation, we can expect commercialism to shut down and stop sucking our blood; there will be no more fierce rivalry or competitions that lead to mudslinging or divide the people. All we will have is peace and solidarity, concern for the people and genuine public service.

Let us live a life for God, Country and Countrymen. We will then fully enter in the portal of protection, provisions and promises that God has purposed, predestined and planned living selflessness.

Council for the Restoration of Filipino Values-Action officer

-o0oSuhestiyon: saan laeng koma kano a maitudo ken mariput dagiti tattao (babassit ken dadakkel) nga addaan kanaig iti illegal a droga. Rumbeng met koma a masentro no sadino ti pagtataudan dagita a droga. Dinto agsardeng ti supply ti droga kadagiti barangay agingga iti di maputed ti pagtataudanna nangruna iti shabu. No maburak ti source...awanen ti mainegosyo pay dagiti anay a barangay officials, saan was asked, predictably, about her blogs that offended a number of senators who belong to the minority and at times criticize President Duterte. More time was spent on Uson’s failure to be balanced in her writ- ing. The senators could’ve dwelt more on (1) whether PCOO could wage propaganda for the administration without peddling lies and (2) how PCOO, which vowed to fight fake news, could do it effectively when bloggers it has hired are accused of the same offense.

Most unlikely that anyone of the PCOO’s bloggers would give up their blogs. PCOO itself wouldn’t want to abandon its arsenal, which proved efficient during the 2016 election campaign and could be useful against “the enemies of the state.” They hired Uson for her help in getting the president elected and her current high value as blog writer with a large following.

Sen. Nancy Binay told Uson she had to choose between blogging and working for PCOO. Advice given but not necessarily adopted. The senators can set a more modest goal instead: keep the artillery fire, funded by taxpayer’s money, away from the lawmakers and if that can’t be avoided, at least not to use fake news as ammunition.

Senator Bam scored Uson’s failure to meet the journalism rule on balance. And her reply about not being a journalist indicates she’s not about to become one and embrace journalism gospels. PCOO chief Martin Andanar recognized the harm that bloggers could do when last August he said he’d encourage nongovernment bloggers it would accredit to follow standards of journalism. As to Uson and aya? Saan laeng a ti serbisyo pam-barangay ti maasikaso ken maitandudo no di ketdi addanton ti pondasyon para iti panagrangay, panagkaykaysa ken talna ken kapia. Dagita koma a suhestiyon ti ibaklay ti gobyerno bayat ti pannakaipakpakat pay laeng ti kampanya ti kapulisan kontra droga. Ramot ti rumbeng a maputed tapno matay metten ti sibubukel a kayo. Malagipko manen daydi lolok: Pinuoranna ti narasbok a kawayan ta payonganna kanon dagiti mulana. Ngem nagbiag latta ti kawayan ta adda pay laeng ti ramutna. Ginaburanna iti adu a garami ken ruot sana binuyatan iti sangalata a gasolina. Siniggiyabanna. Ayos ni lolok. Nauram ti kawayan agraman KALAPAWNA pati nuangna, NALITSON! Sapay koma ta saan a kasta ti pagtinnaganto ti kampanya kontra droga. No sinno dagiti pudpudno a suspetsa, isuda ti pagsungbaten iti linteg. Iti kasta, mapunasto metten ti EJK wenno extra judicial killings. Amen.

-o0oSubliantayo ti barangay eleksiyon. Kayatna a sawen...agtalinaed pay iti akemda dagiti amin nga opisyales ti barangay agingga inton Hunyo, 2018. Kasanon dagiti rinuker ta holdover dagitoy wenno saanda met a masuktan iti agdama? Dayta ita ti dakkel a reponsibilidad ti gobyerno ken bumarangay. Rumbeng a mamonitor ti aramid dagiti sadot ken kurakot nga opisyal. No agtultuloyda iti illegal nga aramidda, rumbeng a masaklangan iti kaso ken madusa sakbay iti eleksiyon inton Mayo 14, 2018. Ita pay laeng, masapul a makuttoanen ti ranggo dagiti agdama nga opisyales ti barangay ken uray pay kadagiti masisiimtayo a tumapogto iti pulitika. Ket kadagiti met nadalus ti panagakemda...adda pay makatawen manen nga inkay itultuloy ti husto a serbisyoyo tapno mas natibtibkerton ti sammakedyo inton eleksiyon-2018. Daytoyen ti panawen ti other bloggers under him, he could order them -- if they’d take his word. One such blogger (not Mocha) told the senators, the government “needs us more than we need them.”

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A 2004 exchange between blogger Markos Moulitsas of “Daily Kos” and writer Zachary Roth of the “Washington Monthly,” posted in Columbia Journalism Review, should give an idea how bloggers differ from journalists.

In gist, what they said: MOULITSAS: You’d apply standards and ethics to blogging, which doesn’t have rules? Blogs are the wild, wild west of the media and bloggers are journalistic outlaws. Not bound by journalistic ethics. Each blogger makes his own rules. Our readers draw our borders. And here’s hilarious: We can get to police traditional media on rules they set for themselves even as we gleefully flaunt those rules.

The fact that we are blogs lets us get off the hook. ROTH: It’s blogger’s prerogative to do whatever they want to do. But we get to call it what it is. Those in traditional media submit to rules because it was gradually agreed that the press, like public officials, also influence conduct of public affairs.

Bloggers cannot have it both ways: they cannot have the rewards of having a voice in public debate and the rewards of a two-year-old who just realizes he can break things. Roth is right, except on one thing. In this country, bloggers cannot do whatever they want to do. We have the penal code and the cyber-crime law and maybe a fake news law.

Bloggers may be outlaws but if they commit libel, contempt or inciting to sedition, if identified or identifiable, they can be dragged to court. Even in the wild west, many outlaws were gunned down by marshals and sheriffs. SSCebu

panagdalus ken panangipakita a serbisyo iti kaadduan ti puntiryayo saan a serbisyoyo iti bukodyo a bulsa ken mudos operandi.

-o0oSubliantayo manen ti isyu ti droga kadagiti barangay. Adu a barangay ti nairekord a drug infested. Kadagiti naglabas a panawen sipud immarangkada ti oplan tokhang...awan nainaganan kadagiti barangay chairman ken nagan ti barangay. Ania ti inaramid ti gobyerno nga addang tapno madalusan dagita a barangay? Ania ti napasamak kadagiti naitudo wenno nasuspetsa nga opisyal? Adda kadin nadusa? Kaawatan kadi nga inton May 14, 2018 ket drug free aminen a barangay ti pagilian? Awanto ngatan dagiti umok ti droga? Nakaseldanto ngata aminen dagiti bulok nga opisyal? Awanto ngatan ti rason tapno isanudto manen ni Pres. Duterte ti eleksiyon? Daplis met dagiti sutil: iti laeng kadi pambarangay nga eleksiyon ti mabalin a pakaaramatan iti drug money? Saan ngata a kastanto met laeng iti mapagpadaanan a national election? Awanto ngata kadagiti local ken national candidates ti igastuan wenno tulongan dagiti sindikato ti droga? No saan a maatipa ti narugit a sestema wenno ti makunkuna a NARCO-POLITICS .... addanto pay ngata nadalus nga eleksiyon? No kaskasdi a narugit...apay kano a kasapulan pay laeng ti eleksiyon? Ngem no awan eleksiyon, kasanotayon a makapili kadagiti agsirbi ditoy pagilian? Tsk tsk...piman a Pilipinas. Ti la adda ditan a pagparparikutantayo. Ti banglesna, agsusubang pay dagiti agtuturay. No sisibiag daydi lolok, maymaysa laeng ti maibagana a solusyon dagita a parikut: mapantayon idiay Mars wenno Bulan! Ngek!

Please share your experience with LOLO DORO “JIMMY LUZANO” AKA. MR. CARIñOSO as we celebrate 50 years in the industry. Send at 0928-506-5269. Thank you, Adios mi amor...ciao, mabalos!