`Vloggers, often derided by their “legacy” media counterparts as being devoid of substance, have shown us the effectiveness of the new media in storytelling, and often how they are backed with hard-to-ignore monetized digital assets called “hits” and “followers.”’
DATA from a pre-election Pulse Asia survey that showed only one in 100 Filipinos got their news from broadsheets hit me like a sucker punch straight where it hurt the most. After all, I was raised in a household where the smell of newsprint was not only normal but pleasant. Not only because members of my mother’s family made their living with the country’s longest running daily, but because I always thought that newspaper reading was an important part of my life.
I must confess that I am not part of that elite 1 percent that still read newspapers regularly. I canceled my last subscription years ago. At the same time, I can claim that I probably follow the news more than ever and from more sources.
What is particularly interesting about the data is not merely how more than 70 percent of respondents said they got their news from the Internet, but the 67 percent and 34 percent who depended on Facebook and YouTube, respectively, for news.
It is sad to think that voters were not benefiting from excellent coverage of the last election. But did they really miss anything? I had to look far and wide for reports on policy intentions from 66 candidates for senator.
Of course it would’ve been extremely taxing for newspapers to field reporters to cover each of the candidates’ sorties over the campaign period. And that was assuming that the candidates indeed elaborated on their legislative positions.
But even if they didn’t, especially those who as a matter of strategy chose to observe platform silence, I think reporters were obliged to press on the politicians the hard questions day after day until they opened up, and then to ask for particulars, clarification and consistency when they did. That way the voters would have a clearer idea which candidates deserved their shaded mark.
The other end of the argument are those publishers who refuse to heed the writing on the digital wall: that their business is not to print a newspaper but to sell information. Ironically, some publishers still regard the online media as a threat to their analog babies and refuse to invest in new ways of storytelling, among others, and in the process failing to attract the demographic that is replacing their aging and vanishing market.
I will never stop appreciating, promoting and encouraging reading. I share a secret held by book worms that plain text is definitely not boring.
Meanwhile some publishers have yet to learn the new medium. They should stop limiting themselves to forcing the more recent Gens to drink only from their trough of plain text, but proactively exploit ways of making political, scientific, economic, social, cultural and other realities relevant to what demographers call the replacement cohort. Vloggers, often derided by their “legacy” media counterparts as being devoid of substance, have shown us the effectiveness of the new media in storytelling, and often how they are backed with hard-to-ignore monetized digital assets called “hits” and “followers.” It is the turn of the content experts to learn the grammar of “new” media and be relevant to a wider circle of potential news consumers.
Someday soon, when the 1 percent Pulse Asia found even shrinks further, the word “newspaper” will be outdated and will become merely symbolic. But the noble public service it performs should not suffer extinction. Bad news for newspapers of the mechanical age, perhaps, but an exciting challenge for journalism. We hope that the news media regain the important place they once had in the public’s hearts and minds.
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Gary Mariano taught full time for 35 years at De La Salle University where he once chaired the Department of Communication. A former chair of the Philippine Press Council, he was also a member of the CHED Technical Committee for Journalism. In retirement, he helps promote local media-citizen councils, teaches part time, and serves at Our Lady of Beautiful Love parish.
