PAGBABAGO

At a recent interview by a journalist who is working on a paper on ownership models and other challenges faced by the media sector in the country, I was asked to share my thoughts on these concerns. The historical context is the revival of democracy in 1986 up to the present decade.

As we had seen, changes in ownership happened after EDSA I with the revival of democracy. There was the shift in ownership from the Marcos crony-owned media to alternative media, preventing cross-ownership of mass media as well as foreign media ownership, and of course, the provision of environment for freedom of expression and the media. These were among the new provisions in the 1987 Constitution. But, as we had seen, the model of ownership continued to remained monopolistic.

From sources such as Statista, 2020, I was able to gather the number of national and community media over the past 37 years.

For national media, we have the following: Print – A total of 12 national broadsheets, 14 Online, and 13 tabloid newspapers; Radio – 416 AM and 1,042 FM or a total of 1,458. Television – 601 broadcast stations.

A majority of the above, including most of the 70 community newspapers started to operate with owners engaged in big business interests. They depended primarily on advertising and hedge funds from various investors. The non-commercial broadcast and print media were financed either by religious groups, judicial notices, and non-government sources such as UNESCO and international organizations.

Besides insufficient funding as they were funded for a limited period of time, (such as the Tambuli network of 20 radio stations which eventually closed down), other challenges included lack of access to frequencies as well as vulnerability to physical violence with 199, mostly broadcast journalists killed, over the period. For many years the country was either the second or one of the top 10 among countries of the world in terms of number of killings of journalists.

During the pandemic, only about half of the 70 community newspapers or 35, remained in operation. The latter hardly survived because of lack of manpower as well as shortage of newsprint and other printing needs.

Both the broadcast and print media demonstrated their resilience during the critical period as they ensured the country’s survival by linking the public to government in the delivery of information, food, access to vaccine and healthcare, during the pandemic.

With digitalization and other technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), the country now finds itself with fresh challenges. Technology made it possible to modernize and strengthen education, the bureaucracy and various functions of government. But its negative impact – spread of disinformation, misinformation, and fake news is now beginning to outweigh the positives. This had led to growing distrust of media and government.

There are however positive developments which may contribute to needed transformation. One is the current thrust in passing legislation that would strengthen decentralization. Local leaders of government and non-government groups may now be more empowered to seek alternative structures in their information, political, social and cultural systems. This can encourage initiatives to seek new economic models including alternative models of media ownership such as the cooperative, or the public service broadcast system. Both would be alternatives to the current model where ownership is in the hands of elite families. In other words, the emergence of shared responsibility, shared profit through shared ownership among the people.

It appears that our people had learned several important lessons from the pandemic. The impact of the pandemic, and the lockdown for over three years had brought about several manifest and latent changes in our psyche and our perception of the future. We are now beginning to realize that it brought us closer to members of our community. It revived and strengthened many of our latent virtues – compassion, trust, sharing, and volunteerism.

Perhaps we should now take advantage of the above values as we begin to transform our social, economic, and political institutions including the media and information system. ([email protected])