Tag Archives: State Media

komentaryo

Andanar’s PNA train wreck

This is all very simple, really. The Philippine News Agency (PNA) has made enough mistakes, has been in the news often enough for being nothing more than a laughable excuse for a newswire service, and ultimately responsibility falls on Communications Secretary Martin Andanar.

After all, I have personally heard him talking about how much he idolizes China’s Xin Hua News Agency, and how he would like to emulate its technology, its offices across the world, its professionalism. The fundamental problem with this of course is that Xin Hua is a state news agency in a country with censorship, where there is no freedom of the press, or of speech. And unless that’s what Andanar hopes for the Philippines, there is absolutely no reason to even think of emulating Xin Hua.

But PNA’s foreign news section is filled with news taken from Xin Hua, and that can only fall on Andanar’s shoulders. Why are you even thinking this news service to be credible source of news about China, and about the world?  (more…)

komentaryo

Dreaming of a People’s TV

There were two dominant reactions to the proposal of a People’s Television in the last column.

One was a belief that what was meant was Marcosian Martial Law television. The other was a yawn – it has been said before, planned before, imagined before, and nothing ever came of it.

What it is not: Marcosian TV
It bears repeating that nowhere in that column about a People’s TV did I assert that it should be similar to or go in the direction of Martial Law TV, which existed primarily on censorship and the repression of free speech, and the use of culture as a way to propagate government propaganda. (more…)