Press freedom
The problem with President Duterte and Rappler is that neither he nor his spokesmen know how to defend themselves over the Rappler flap and that Rappler itself thinks the world owes it every entitlement just for being a member of the press. As a result, the issues are confused. What used to be the sacred and precious gift of press freedom now gets mistaken for the quarrel between a testy president and a prideful news outfit. Press freedom has got nothing to do with this brouhaha.
Just because Duterte is mad at Rappler doesn't mean he is after the press. Anyone who thinks so either is blind or doesn't get it. No journalists are getting beaten up or jailed. Presses are not being shut. Critics still flog Duterte day and night. News is still available when you want it, where you want it. Rappler is not the press and the press is not Rappler. And if you cannot accept that it is in hot water for an entirely different matter, then you are losing sleep needlessly.
Press freedom is alive and thriving in the Philippines. Even granting that Duterte's actions can be threatening to some, the fact remains that threats are one thing and reality another. It is wrong, stupid, and unfair to charge anyone of something he has not done simply because you think he will do it. To allow such folly to rule our lives makes for a very topsy-turvy world in which everyone loses.
Rappler cannot be the prima donna of the press. If it thinks journalism is a walk in the park, it should shift to the business of organizing weddings. There it can have its cake and eat it too. But if it chooses to stay the course, it must learn that in this business, those who dish it out are expected to also be able to take it. Real journalists do not complain of flies getting into the ink. Many in this profession have fallen, but always as silent heroes, never as loud bellyachers.
A Rappler journalist getting barred from Malacañang is pablum. Far better journalists have suffered worse, but they all picked themselves up with dignity and went on to pursue the story, not once thinking of press freedom being an issue. To them it is all part of the hazards of the job. Real journalists, like real artists, never call attention to themselves or their work. If they must be judged, it must be by others. Doing so themselves invites bias, if Rappler even knows what it means.
Real journalists do not allow one inconvenience to sidetrack their pursuit of a story. The inability to be physically present in Malacañang is not the end of a presidential coverage, unless one wants to be spoon-fed. But apparently it is not the getting of the story that got Rappler so miffed but the slight to its pride -the effrontery of Duterte banning a Rappler reporter. True professionals when confronted by a wall will find a way around it. They do not bitch about their fate.
Press freedom is too sacred and valuable to be reduced and trivialized in every kink and ruffle encountered in our daily journalistic pursuits. And I am aghast that the 35 years of journalism behind me would now seem so inconsequential in the overblown shadow of one reporter whose credentials now scream of being denied entry into Malacañang. If that is all it took, maybe I should just have thrown myself at every closed gate and door in my career and cried. But that is not the way it is.
If we want to save this noble profession from becoming useless and irrelevant, let us stop having delusions of grandeur about our own self-worth. Complaining about every bump in the road as an affront to press freedom will not serve to protect and strengthen it. Like the boy who cried wolf, we will only serve to weaken and debase it. And when the time comes when press freedom is truly getting its ass kicked, no one will notice the urgency in our screams for real help.
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