‘POLITICKING’ BY MEDIA.

Why politics can’t be kept out even after elections

“Media (especially Sun.Star) is still campaigning against me like elections are next week. No matter what I do, they will inject politics into it.” -- Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, on FaceBook, July 24, 2016

WHENEVER a politician criticizes another politician, be it against a plan or a decision, he routinely condemns it as politicking.

Politicking? Every politician is expected and bound to consider politics in every public word or deed he makes. He eats three meals and snacks of politics each day.

How could a veteran and astute politician such as Mayor Tomas Osmeña rule out politics in whatever he does or says, given the bitterness of the rivalry between him and his predecessor Michael Rama? Even before he took over the mayorship last June 30, then acting mayor Margot Osmeña, his wife, continued to stir the political pot with measures that their opponents couldn’t view as apolitical.

Controversial orders

Team Rama, BOPK’s rival, could not take politics out of the equation. The mayor’s orders to recall city-owned cars, firearms and ambulances and other emergency vehicles were justified by the new administration as mere inventories. The firing of casual employees and the plan to dissolve special bodies and the slashing or removal of subsidies from national employees were described as cost-saving measures. Which media reported, diligently. But there were voices of dissent: Rama and his supporters, who could not accept defeat, thought it was like wholesale, systematic running of the opposition to the ground.

Which media reported as well, along with mixed opinions of newspaper columnists and broadcast commentators.

Many platforms

Media necessarily reports political activity, which doesn’t stop with the election and proclamation of winners. Government machinery hums in politics, with politicians making decisions, big or small, that they see will have impact on public support, which in turn will influence voting in the next election.

Is media campaigning? Media reports and comments, as it must, on matters of public interest. If anyone sees an erroneous news report or a misinformed or wrong commentary, he can raise his correction or disagreement. Right to reply is alive and well in Cebu. Errors are rectified. Dissent is not stifled.

Or an aggrieved media consumer can use other media and other platforms. Abundance of channels of information should remove any fear of anyone, news source or plain citizen, of being drowned out or silenced.

No ‘monopoly of truth’

The mayor said “newspapers no longer have a monopoly of the truth.” True. For that matter, no media outlet, or public official, can be the sole arbiter of truth.

If Mayor Tomas means that “media (especially Sun.Star)” is engaged in trying, this early, to whip up an anti-Osmeña vote, that’s inaccurate and unfair. For Sun.Star, we disagree.

But then (1) he has the right to his opinion and (2) Sun.Star has its readers to decide the paper’s worth as source of information. Every day, through the years, the paper submits to scrutiny and review by its audience.