Responsibility, etiquette

Taking off from Saturday’s piece about the price of democracy, there are a few issues in sports today that are bound by the gray areas of responsibility and etiquette. In a nation known for being one of the heaviest users of social media, some lines are being crossed and liberties being taken in reaction to events that some spectators and pundits have an adverse reaction to.

Critics of Manny Pacquiao’s participation in the PBA, for example, paint a no-win scenario for the boxing champion. Some have called him and even the league itself some rather undeserved names as a result of his playing. Many vocally criticized his revelation that he was planning on playing in one last game Saturday before flying to the US to begin training for his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. As this writer said in Saturday’s column, it was an unnecessary risk. Pacquiao is preparing for the overdue biggest fight of his career, and exposing himself to possible injury was, in addition, irresponsible, though well within his rights. We can only complain about the choices sports personalities make. They have to face any consequences that we foresee.

Fortunately, common sense prevailed, and Pacquiao did show up for the game only as its designated head coach. Now, his critics are pouncing on the fact that few people showed up for the game, which was held in a smaller venue, San Juan Arena. Some are even going to the extent of saying that fans are waking up, which is a bit of a stretch, since fans in the Philippines in general already know more about basketball than most people outside of North America. In other words, the man can’t get a break.

But historically, fans know that expansion teams are still finding their chemistry, and have players who are not as experienced as those of longer-tenured teams. This was one of the reasons why, after its peak in television ratings in 1989, the PBA’s popularity dipped somewhat, as the combination of expansion teams Pepsi and Pop Cola and the difficulty of public transportation to the ULTRA proved a disincentive to loyal fans. Within two years, the league realized a substantial ratings loss, which took a while for it to recover. This proves that fans will go to any length to watch a competitive game, and will not show the same determination for relative unknowns and games of teams that are not proven quantities.

In the updated version of their book “The Elements of Journalism”, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel delve deeply into the metamorphosis of the journalism profession in the digital age. They discuss the death of traditional news subscription services, and the loosening of the monopoly of major network news organizations on the news. The book, first published in 2001 and revised and reissued in 2014, takes note of how everyone can now be a “journalist” simply because of the universal access to social media. First of all, there has been a general shift of audiences to web-based access to news, both through websites of traditional news media and personal platforms of celebrities, government offices and other persons of significance, in the mad rush to grab eyeballs, many have tried to gain a foothold on this new audience by investing in their own online presence. But the sad truth is that advertising revenue has not caught up with the number of people seeking news online.

Looking back just a few years, this has changed much in the way we get our news, and comment on it. Now, everyone has the potential to be a source of news. Celebrities have millions of followers on their Twitter accounts, and use them to make big announcements, as Mayweather did in revealing a signed contract between him and Pacquiao. This also allows for people (experts and authorities or not) to react, respond and comment in their own ways, and that is the double-edged sword we now live with.

Because of all this openness, there is also a looser sense of responsibility. If you recall, after the EDSA People Power uprising, dozens of newspapers sprouted all over the country, unfettered from Martial Law. Who populated some of these newspapers? Not necessarily the best or even best-intentioned journalists and pseudo-journalists. Many rules were broken or changed. Some survived. Some did not. A similar situation prevails now. In the last three years alone, several new sports media entities have also been born. Some established journalists have either straddled the worlds of journalism and blogging, or abandoned the former for the latter.

What does this have to do with the issues being written about here? For the sake of speed and being the first to break a story, training and ethics are not as strictly enforced. For example, how many respected news personalities and services have announced that Pacquiao and Mayweather were going to fight each other, even if no contract between them had been drafted yet? How many cited “credible” sources, some named, many unnamed? And how many of us copied and pasted, reposted and retweeted, and discussed, debated and analyzed something that was not true in the first place? Where was the fact-checking? 

This also brings about a kind of recklessness similar to prank calling a stranger. People now just toss out insulting, hurtful words when they see something they don’t like. One retired PBA Hall of Famer living in the US chanced upon a photo of himself with clown make-up edited onto his likeness by a female basketball “fan”, lumping him together with more controversial personalities for no apparent reason. He reached out to this writer to voice his hurt and displeasure at the disrespect. Luckily, his photo had already been taken down. But think of the impression it may have left his fans. It seems no one is now spared such humiliation.

We, as an audience, have a responsibility to do more than just laugh along. We’re not just anonymous faces sitting in the dark chuckling while a stand-up comedian insults public figures. We have a responsibility to tune out, edit and speak out against those who cast insult and name-call. That’s what civilized people do. We can take a public figure (like a professional athlete) to task and disagree with their actions openly, that’s what a democracy is. But we shouldn’t deface their image or call them names. Having had that experience, I can tell you that it is unpleasant. The best policy is: attack the deed, not the doer.