Press and the Pressures

The Fourth Estate, although perhaps an obsolete term to describe the press, traditionally referred to in parallel with the primary institutions of state power, underscores the indispensable role of journalism in checking governments through its role as a watchdog. Thus, every second week of February, we celebrate National Press Week enshrined under Proclamation No. 191 s. 1964 and Proclamation No. 8 s. 1966 to enjoin the people in ensuring press freedom to the end that the press shall continue to be “free, militant, and fearless” in fulfilling its mission so vital for a functioning democracy.

Undeniably, the press today faces multi-pronged pressures. First, reporting turned out to be a challenge in a post-truth world. Cian O’Callaghan described the term as referring to a situation where facts have already lost power in contemporary public discourse. It’s not that there are no facts anymore, but rather on the masses’ utter disregard where facts had become secondary to our beliefs and politics. For instance, the United States under Donald Trump exemplifies this case. A team of Washington Post fact-checkers recorded a total of more than 30,000 false or misleading claims during his first term in office. When pushed on an egregious false claim that a White House spox has made, the Counselor to the President rather called it “alternative facts”. 

In the Philippines, disinformation and misinformation on the late dictator’s regime helped his namesake secure Malacanang during the 2022 election. A network of influencers and trolls flooded the social media platforms distorting historical facts. Interestingly, in the recent dramatic change of heart, many previous staunch apologists are now calling for his ouster after the pathetic Uniteam breakup using the very same set of facts and issues they willingly denied and disregarded before the election.

Second, despite the change in the administration, the media generally are not in a better place. The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) has recorded 53 press freedom violations recorded during Marcos Jr’s first term compared to the 41 per year average recorded during Duterte. This year, the country ranked ninth in the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Global Impunity Index which measures the number of unsolved journalist murders vis-à-vis the country’s population.

Third, questions often arise on the credibility of media platforms as many channels are now owned by personalities closely connected to the president resembling a crony press. The Villars own AllTV which took over the frequency previously used by the ABS-CBN. The Romualdez family owns the Manila Standard while House Speaker Martin Romualdez owns Prime Media Holdings, which has a joint venture with ABS-CBN. On the other hand, some media outlets experience financial windfalls. Last year, CNN Philippines had to shut down its operations after incurring billions of losses. 

Furthermore, in an era of ubiquitous social media use, the virtual space is saturated by narratives of armchair pundits and influencers often consumed not by critical citizens but consumers-fans who cherrypick information to confirm existing biases. But one thing is certain: these self-proclaimed pundits cannot supplant the press, as they are not held to the same accountability and ethical standards other than fidelity to their agenda.

Thus in a time where democracies often fall prey to demagoguery and where lies are weaponized to breed polarization, the need for free and fearless journalism to hold power accountable becomes indispensable now more than ever. In an ideal democratic public sphere, people reach understanding and agreement through open, honest, and reasoned conversations resonating with the philosopher Jurgen Habermas’ idea of communicative rationality. But these conversations can only be reached through properly informed masses, and this is why we always need to uphold the freedom of the press.