Quality Media in the Mainstream: Challenge Accepted!
- Christine May Gallego
- Mar 5, 2016
- 5 min read
To make something of quality bears with how it is formulated to be able to materialize its function. In making quality media in the mainstream, it does not just concern a well-formulation of the message to meet the need of news and information, but it also concerns of what makes media as it is to be of quality. Quality media in the sense of making media stand as what its purpose claims. But what does it really claims itself to be? Tackling this matter boils down to knowing what media is, what makes it a quality media, and as well as the relevance of the mainstream media to the Filipino community, as a societal factor which greatly affects the awareness of the large society that doesn’t just concern an individual but embodies everyone as we comprise the reality that media shapes and reflects. So, where do we start?
Media as it is and underneath.
It would be justifiable if we first refresh what media means. According to a source on the web, media is “a group that constructs messages with embedded values, and that disseminates those messages to a specific portion of the public in order to achieve a specific goal.” Mainstream media are the communication channels that cover as large an audience as possible. This implies that mainstream media has the power to greatly affect and influence the public with the messages being conveyed as news and information.
What makes media a group is its being collective. Media, as a channel through which the message is being transmitted, comprise not only of the radio stations, television channels, computers and the web, newspapers, and movie studios; it significantly comprise the media personnel as we call who are the working potential agents of bringing about a message to the vast public. Media constructs messages with embedded values, in the sense that they can influence people’s view and interpretation of the events and issues as to how these are being delivered.
Media disseminates messages to a specific portion of the public. Having the term “specific portion” doesn’t mean that there is bias as to who will receive the message. This implies that the message should be appropriately reported. Proximity and significance as factors in news production for example, should be considered.
Relevance of media in the Filipino community
Media strives to achieve a specific goal of truth in reporting, without fear and favor. We provide accurate news and information that feed the awareness of the public. Without the media which serve as transmitters of the message to the public, how will the country and government survive? The government alone cannot survive without media. This voices out its relevance to the Filipino community who desperately needs transparency with the government, especially now that we are in the midst of various economic, political, and social crises, thus needing reformation. Media bridges the people towards the society and all its aspect. Thus, the need of quality media should be a prerequisite to having a quality Republic.
What makes a quality media?
We are now confronted with the question that only we alone can answer and only we alone can initiate. A quality media entails quality media people. The media ethics would remain written unless executed. Qualities of being a media personnel will remain words unless applied; and the goal of wanting to make a quality media would remain just a dream unless we wake up from it and start working to materialize the quality we want to see. The answer is in the basics. We oath to be truthful, to be open-minded, to be liable, to keep the balance, to be responsible, to always promote the authority of Constitution with honor and good conduct, to be reasonable with care and precautions, following the rules and regulations of the KBP Code, to be an effective broadcaster with respect towards self, his co-journalists, to the people and institutions.
The challenge.
Making quality media in the mainstream is a challenge as much as a responsibility. The quality of the message catered to the people lies greatly upon us, therefore media people should make sure to produce good quality message. It is an undeniable fact that information and news can be altered, sensationalized, and even contaminated. Media personnel are very much vulnerable to violating the media ethics and thus sometimes commit excesses in media.
For instance, generalization and concluding without verification. A concrete example was when various television channels’ reporters broadcasted news about the “misencounter” in Mamasapano, Maguindanao where forty-four SAF members died of their duty. This event has just become one of the congested chaos in the Philippines’ southern island. News about Mindanao has always been like that, all about war outbreaks and chaos. We weren’t even much recognized of the lush wonders of nature we have, how culturally-preserved our people are, and how agriculturally-potential our land is; because we have been masked by just chaotic blanket and matters of guns and bullets. It has been reflected as if the whole Mindanao is doomed and at all times on-fire that it’s not news unless it’s war in Mindanao. This is very much unfair to us.
Apart from the above stated exemplifications, many other excesses prevents the materialization of a quality media. This just shows that the Philippine media on the mainstream is not of good quality, though I would be ashamed and sorry to indicate this. There is an immediate must to making quality media in the mainstream not just for the sake Philippine media industry’s goodwill and upgrade prestige, but for the sake of the people at large, whom we, media personnel and our jobs are dedicated to.
Making quality media moreover, includes scrutinizing media messages to see if it has the sense to be reported and displayed to the large public. Sex in the media needs to be minimized, and shall not be entrusted to censorship since I believe this can only trigger the curiosity of the viewers and increase viewing activity, especially the young ones. The same thing goes to violence flashed in the media mainstream. Normalizing these kinds of images and message to the public is not a good thing, and we will be responsible of the way people can possibly react towards the message we convey.
It shall be a reminder for us that we are not making a just-some-money-making-business here. The people are our business, and they are our responsibility. Even the slightest thing we produce can impact greatly, whether in a good way, or the other way around. We all should have known this, I bet.
Quality media-men begets quality media; quality media begets quality news and information, and quality information begets quality citizens. What’s next? By this, I say that it will never be impossible to have a quality Republic which would finally be transparent to its people with the quality service of media in the mainstream. Oh, yes. Not just media, but quality media.
This is a no ordinary challenge, yes. But making quality media in the mainstream? Well as for me, challenge accepted!
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