RUNNING AWAY FROM NEWS
...during my wedding vacation, i really made an effort to stay away from newspapers and tv news. if there was a newspaper around, i would read the business page and forget the whole thing. i did not seek it. the rest of the days i ignored the news. it's too stressful, reading news that is.
i never realized that it is possible for you to be out of touch that way, like being on the himalayas without any means of communication to the outside world. what's funny is that i was almost online everyday, even when i was in hong kong, i managed to sneak in a few minutes to check my email.
but still i managed to get out of the loop. ignorance is bliss.
so i was kinda lost when i got back in.
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since there was no cable tv in our hotel in HK, there was only one english language channel we could tune in to. watching the news on that channel was like watching your history teacher doing a rundown of what happened after the pack at biak-na-bato.
was it because i am used to the "excitable" way our news anchors deliver news and the framing of news like it was some kind of drama?
i remember prof. rondina telling us about his experience in graduate school abroad when he showed a recording of saksi (or frontpage before the early evening news on GMA7 became 24 oras) to his class. i can't remember if it was saksi nga.
anyway, when rondina showed the recording to the class, the viewers were wondering what was happening since they could not understand the news as it was delivered in Filipino. they were alarmed and thought something catastrophic happened due to the "excitable" news anchors. it turned out that the anchors were just delivering a run of-the-mill news, something as mundane as a new appointment or something similar.
i remembered this anecdote while i was watching the news about one of HK's trams that got derailed where two got injured and were rushed to the hospital. the news was delivered in a way similar to how a mass commentator would read the marriage banns after the mass...
...then imagine mike enriquez delivering such news -- followed by footages and interviews of bystanders, of the passengers and of the injured themselves as they are wheeled towards the emergency room with matching crying relatives.
watching and reading the news in other countries led me to believe that i'm leading and living an exciting life here in manila and it's probably boring there in HK or singapore. i've read the newspapers in singapore and i remember one issue had a story of how commuters complained of "tardiness" of the efficient bus and railway system. 5 minutes late, it's already a cause for concern for these spoiled singaporeans. i muttered to myself, "come here in manila and probably you wouldn't last a week."
i'm already digressing. but the point is, i don't know if it's because of how we present news or is it because singapore and HK's media are state-controlled (directly or indirectly) so no real news items are written or aired? or life in manila is just truly chaotic that it merits such type of news coverage and delivery?
don't know the real answer to that one and all i know is, for a media practitioner like me, it's unthinkable that i've given up watching and reading the news.
or i may be too stressed that reading and watching the news just adds knotted muscles on my back.
