By Jullie Y. Daza
Jullie Y. Daza
Two ladies who write news are making news, no comment from this corner due to technical deficiencies.
I don’t read Maria Ressa’s Rappler’s online news and I’m not a follower of Mocha Uson on her Facebook. Fact is, I’m terribly old-school, i.e., the school of Gutenberg. But when I saw James Franco owning up to TV host Stephen Colbert that he does not do FB or Twitter, I could’ve named him Man of the Year, for giving me reason to no longer be ashamed of my lack of literacy.
I do remember Rappler for a small mistake it committed some years ago when it killed Jerry Barican a few weeks before he actually, really, truthfully died in hospital. (I say “small mistake” because I, too, was once declared prematurely dead, by a text sent to a lifestyle editor. When the editor tried to verify the message with my daughter, she was with me eating our Sunday lunch in a nice, quiet restaurant.)
And when they say Rappler’s current problems are with the Securities and Exchange Commission, I’d be too timid to so much as touch on a subject that is a tad esoteric for my taste. Rappler’s other problem, a libel suit stemming from a story that reportedly happened in 2012, long before Rappler came to be covered by the laws of libel, doesn’t deserve comment for the simple reason that journalists take pride in the suits filed against them, the more the merrier.
Assistant Press Secretary Mocha Uson, on the other hand, attracts 5 million followers, so they say, which makes you wonder if she’s also the lightning rod that attracts bad press for and in behalf of her boss, Press Secretary Martin Andanar. I find her to be a very attractive figure – and what a figure – but to be fair, I cannot figure her out because I haven’t read her columns in print and her tweets or posts or whatever they’re called. This is playing fair on a level playing field: I’m sure she doesn’t read me and won’t be reading this.
Ms. Uson again made news when she was named an outstanding alumna of the UST Alumni Association – not of the university – last Sunday. The reaction was not only cerebral but physical, I was told. Either way, wouldn’t she be just the type to enjoy another controversy tucked under her belt?