How Phoenix-Like, Philippine & American Media Can Rise From The Ashes Of Their Mediocrity

MANILA: Are we at the end times for journalism? Yes.

I just learned that, in their print editions, Philippine newspapers are a dying breed. Hardly anyone reads the papers anymore. And there are fewer and fewer advertisements. There are the online paper editions, and you get the news faster. And there is the Facebook page.

But I believe this is more than just surfing the Web instead of paying for the paper. It has to do with substance, sense & style or, if you like, content, contention & construction. The print edition is always lovely to browse, and browse again, at leisure. But if your news and views are dull, quantity and quality are against you.

Journalism. If you fight to wage war, you lose; if you fight to wage peace, you're starting from a winning position. If not even one of your columnists can write a charming piece amidst the churning waters, your journalism is such a pity.

Image is important, literally and figuratively. Manila sunset has always been beautiful; this is the one sunset I hate to see. I am looking at Manila journalism at the sunset of its life.

Sunset and evening star
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar
When I put out to sea.

I memorized that poem when I was in high school 60 plus years ago; that one is "Crossing The Bar" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, British poet. Manila journalism is now crossing the bar. In Tennyson's poem, the bar is the sand bar, which he must step on as he sails towards the sunset. In the case of Manila journalism, there is the bar of public opinion that it must serve, not say goodbye to at worst, or ignore at the very least.

The last time I commented on Manila journalism, I was very, very polite; this was on the pooled media editorial. I said (30 June 2016, iWord Affairs, blogspot.co.id):

"If journalism is good, it is controversial, by its nature" – Julian Assange, Australian journalist and Editor in Chief of WikiLeaks. If you ask me, my country Philippines' pooled media editorial "The Prez And The Press" is not controversial.

Actually, the gritty Manila editors and publishers have been intimidated, and the pooled editorial has been proof positive of that.

Manila Bulletin, Manila Standard, Manila Times, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Star are all has-beens:  Manila journalism has had its glory days.

As in the man in Tennyson's poem, Manila journalism is sailing towards the sunset, and I'm the only one moaning at the bar. Actually, that sailing began long before the silhouette of Rodrigo Roa Duterte, now President of the Philippines, came into the scene. Now, Duterte does not enjoy talking to the media – because he talks too much and they report so much. So, no media interviews. Meanwhile, the War on Drugs continues, with its collateral damage, including Senator Leila De Lima. So, now the Du30 silhouette is all over the place and the word workers don't know what to do. Du30 also reads, "Do 30" and, in journalism, that means, "End it" or "The End" – so, they're all beat.

Beat, as in "exhausted, worn out" (dictionary.com), "worn-out, fatigued" (American Heritage Dictionary), "completely exhausted" (en.oxforddictionaries.com). Our journalists here and abroad are the new Beat Generation! The Filipino columnists, editors and reporters are, yes, they are behind the times – in commenting, editorializing, and reporting. Worse, they are behind the times in creative commenting, creative editorializing, and creative reporting. Creativity at this time is leaving our journalists behind, suffocating in the dust of the Information Superhighway. The rise of Rodrigo Duterte is now a good excuse for the lack of creativity in mass media.

They are not alone. As with Philippine media, the American media are at a loss for words! Says Michael Tomasky of The New York Review of Books (13 October 2016, nybooks.com):

The "objective" American press doesn't know how to deal with a man who says something false nearly every time he speaks.

Ha! The date I quote is correct; the behavior of the man is familiar; the behavior of the American media is not correct but is familiar. Are we at the End Times of Mass Media?

Pinoy Journalism at its beat. Best to beat it!

How to be creative when you are beat? Here's some advice from me:

Don't think straight! Beat around the bush – otherwise, you can be charged for libel.

Don't beat someone, anyone; instead, beat back something that everyone can fight. Like poverty. Like drug addiction, but not addiction of the police to being beasts of murder.

Don't beat back or withdraw; instead, beat yourself. Discover your own weakness and beat that!

Don't beat a dead horse, like Matobato; instead, rise above the occasion and beat the drums of intelligence, for he is only a pawn in a larger war of chess.

Beat a path to the saner among your family, friends, or colleagues and imbibe from the spring of their wisdom.

Don't try to beat them at their own game – it's their game, not yours. You are more intelligent than they are. And don't play his game; instead, invent and play yours.

Beat the traffic of the naysayers and critics – don't be one of them, for they are a dime a dozen. They don't exercise their brains much, and you need more exercise!

Finally, not forgetting you are a journalist: you have to beat the clock. You have to think fast but, of course, you were not taught in school how to do that, except to consider the Who What Where When Why How – which is only critical thinking, not creative thinking. That journalism formula is in a rut. Beat it!

Journalists, especially editors and columnists, should not simply react – they should pro-act. How?

Come to me who are heavily laden, and I will give you the rest.

Note the name of this blog. With the concept of my Free Associations Habit as a tool for creative thinking on any subject, I am offering all media people, but especially the columnists, editors and reporters, a free half-a-day demo on coming out with a column, editorial and news item on the subject that is current on that date – your place, not mine. All I need is an LCD/LED projector and a cup of coffee – I'll take the instant Brown & Creamy Nescafe. No strings attached except, take it or leave it, my offer for online mentoring for you to cultivate your own habit of free ass – pronounced free us – for your own unlimited and untiring creativity. Like, look at the above image again; you are free to associate it with a sunrise, instead of a sunset; or an opening, instead of a closing; or an awakening, instead of a slumbering; or a challenge, instead of a barrier. Set your mind free!

I just turned 76, and I feel I'm just peaking on my creative thinking leading to my creative writing – you can't do any creative writing if you don't do first creative thinking.

How good am I in creative writing? I have proof. Of my blogs, my 1st collection, A Magazine Called Love (blogspot.com), contains 2,222 plus of my long essays, each more than 1K words each; my 2nd collection, iWord Affairs (blogspot.co.id) now contains 500 plus of my essays, each also longer than 1K words. That's at least 2.7 million words written in the last 10 years, or about 23 long essays a month. If you don't call that creativity, you don't know what creativity is.

Please note that each of my essays is a proper one with a Beginning, Middle and End; none is a hodgepodge, mix-match, throw-in-everything composition just to make the self-imposed quota in number of words, 1K.

And yes, I'm self-taught in my creative thinking leading to my creative writing, and you are much younger, so you can aspire to be many times more creative than you are now.

So, I'm offering your group, any media group, a brush with feat. If interested, email me at frankahilario@gmail.com. I'll call it now:

On-The-Spot Creative Writing – For Media.

I repeat, free. I mean mass media, but I'm leaving out this time broadcast and cinema, because I have no experience in writing for broadcast, and no scriptwriting for films.

In fact, there is no creative writing if there is no creative thinking first. So what I will demonstrate in half a day is how to come up with a topic right there and then, and then to write it up while everyone is looking at the projected text.

I can do that because I have trained my mind to let go, to freely associate ideas with other ideas whether they are conflicting, crazy, common sense, or even when it looks like it's counter-intuitive. Right now, I can teach you that in creative thinking, there is only one rule:

There is none!

Another way of putting that is: Think out of the box. And on that single half-day encounter with me, you will begin to think out of the box. In fact, because you have reached this point, you can now appreciate thinking out of the box.

September 2016. Essay word count, excluding this line: 1543