the year of the dog
Manila, 17 February—Happy Chinese New Year weekend! Hope this week has been kind. Attended the Democracy and Disinformation forum at Ateneo in Rockwell on Monday, then we had Valentine's Day, and then Chinese New Year holiday, which kicked off the long weekend. This week held a lot of surprises for me (and my friends lol), so yay.
VERA file's video outlining the President's inconsistencies in various aspects is a must-see. Available on Vimeo here.
Notes from the Democracy and Disinformation Forum
I was able to catch Day 1 of the Democracy and Disinformation Forum which was spearheaded by Sir John Nery and the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It featured veteran journalists from online, print and broadcast. I saw my former Journalism professors and schoolmates, one panel had Maria Ressa of Rappler side by side with Sir John (PDI) and Howie Severino (GMA), and several foreign media academics also joined in from Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia, I think. In all, it was a good gathering of media practicioners, academics, students, and allies. I was there because my boss received an invite and thought the office had to send someone, so there we were.
Noted with interest the Vera files video I linked to above, Maria Ressa's session about "Information Wars", Br Armin of DLSU and Fr Jett of ADMU's panel, and the presentation about the "Architecture of Disinformation." I think we all agree that we have a technology-enabled problem where information pollution is concerned, and I believe media is complicit in aggravating it.
Right from the start, I have had my reservations about airing the President's speeches live, especially after observing that several of his recurring points have been repeatedly erroneous and uncorrected or even exaggerated. Right then, I knew that something had to be done to keep reportage truthful.
What I did not expect was for the administration to be so reliant on disinformation in running government affairs. It is clear to me what that fulfills: They need to keep the nation divided to keep themselves in power. And since some people still bend over backwards to defend the President who every so often asks the military to shoot women rebels in the vagina, I guess the government is doing a splendid job at keeping Filipinos at opposite ends of a spectrum that the government has installed in the first place.
There are several points worth highlighting from the two-day summit, and my notes are all over the place, but let me just share a few:
Good journalism alone isn't going to solve this problem. This is not just journalists' battle, but society's battle as well. (Ressa)
There has to be something else, beyond improving journalism. Journalists must come to terms with reality that news is not something only journalists can define. (Nery)
While citizen journalism has its own uses, community journalism must be done by professionals. We need to celebrate, underline need for journalists who know issues, who know how to create stories with integrity. (P. Greste)
Lots of great points throughout the forum. Rappler compiled video recordings of the panels in a playlist on their Youtube channel here:
Check out the Democracy & Disinformation Playlist
#BigBadWolfBooks, hot damn
Everyone's talking about that 24-hour book sale at World Trade Center this week, so of course we went. And my god, were the books really cheap, or what?! We spent most of Friday night walking around the warehouse and sifting through hundreds of books. They weren't kidding about the discounts—we managed to snag design books at P480 and Liz Gilbert's hardbound Big Magic at P230, for starters. At the end of our 3-hour trawl, we had 9 books, and were still under 3k. Not bad at all. We went after 9 p.m., finished around midnight-ish. I think it's better to go at night because at least it's not hot—but don't get me wrong, the crowd was still crazy! It runs until the 25th and is open for 24 hours. I don't know about you, but a 3 a.m. book sale run sounds good to me.
What's on everyone's Netflix queue?
Hey, so if you're looking for something to binge over the long weekend, please do consider giving One Day At A Time a chance. It's a lovely comedy about a Cuban-American family. It's funny, it's touching, and many times I could not decide whether to keep laughing or keep crying. Seriously.