Scribes to hold assembly

THE POST-election dynamics, amid the threat of disinformation and fake news in social media, are expected to redefine the way the media pursues its critical role as a social catalyst.

Suffering from pessimism, the authentic press, especially the rural media, is also confronted with a bigger challenge of making itself relevant in a badly disturbed democratic space.

Against the malicious imputations labeling genuine journalists as paid hacks and propagandists, the struggling media practitioners have also become victims of warped revisionism and destructive falsehoods peddled by disparaging publicists.

To address the issues, the media scribes, disturbed by the pitiful downhill trajectory of the Philippine press, are joining forces to sieve the facts from untruths, and to understand the options available to save the much-abused media from the impact of partisan distortions and fake news.

On June 24, the Federation of Provincial Press Clubs of the Philippines, Inc will host the Local Press Assembly 2022 entitled ‘The Role of the Community Press in the New Administration’ to define the role of the press as a vehicle of information and to revisit the community media’s role in the national reportage.

The Publishers Association of the Philippines, Inc. and and the Boracay Global Press Corps Philippines, Inc. are also conveners of the event which will be held t the PEZA Convention Hall at the DoubleDragon Center West Bldg., DD Meridian Park along Macapagal Avenue in Pasay City.

Significantly, the conference takes a hard look on how best to protect the working journalists from becoming social outcasts and understand the effect of the pandemic that has forced media outlets to downsize operations, retrench personnel, or even permanently shut down. Even outfits that have already earned the honor as pillars of Philippine journalism have not been spared.

Outside the gargantuan task of braving the emergence of fake news and protecting press freedom, the survival of the working media is also an urgency. Foremost among the objects of the assembly is the feasibility of creating a Local Press Council and the establishment of a cooperative news agency whose implications extend to every rural media’s occupational needs.

With coercion from red-tagging, criminal libel cases, prostitution by pseudo-journalists, and the spooky influences politics has introduced, revisiting press freedom and introducing new cogent proposals, no matter how slight, should create a specter of hope among journalists who have always believed in the inviolability of honest and truthful reportage.

For the rural press, tagged as second-class institutes, the greater role is to strengthen its resolve against negative challenges and to create a network that can feed the true media outlets in urban centers with reports that expose the inanities occurring in the way the bureaucracy is being run by scheming minds. It is a tall order, but the genuine press must not cower in dread. 

The conference is expected to tackle the following: Catalytic role of local press under the new dispensation; significance of the new Department of Migrant Workers; PEZA as an investment haven in Asia; creation of a local press council in cities and provinces; establishment of a cooperative news agency; and expanding the role of the community media organizations in tackling critical issues. 

The media convention will also endeavor to recommend a legislation pushing for the passage a law to decriminalize libel; endorse to Congress the Passage of stringent laws against fake news; propose to Congress a bill that defines human rights and the press; and, pass a law that protects legitimate media organizations and practitioners. (Mindanao Examiner)