BY JULLIE YAP DAZA
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THERE’S the pandemic swirling all around us, and there’s the infodemic of misinformation, disinformation, and fake news.
With an overload of information and knowledge assailing our senses every minute of the day, with or without a sieve to separate trash from truth, fact from fiction, does panic ensue as a byproduct of the need to know? Even for journalists, they who write and produce the news and have made it their vocation of a lifetime, the messages streaming out of screens big and small throughout the day can and do overwhelm. At 95 percent bad news, it would be normal for normal people to cover their eyes and ears and avoid the source, whether printed or digital, first-person or third-person accounts.
So it is that the journalists who bring the news to readers and viewers are not normal people, especially the young ones.
To the field reporters, photographers, cameramen of all media who chase after the COVID-19 virus to transmit the freshest headlines, I salute you! You’re brave, bold and healthy, duty-bound and professionally committed, and you show no fear in your eyes (the rest of your face being covered by a mask). I wonder, are these warriors paid extra as war correspondents, the coronavirus crisis being a real war?
They’re frontliners, too. A good thing they’re strong, too, unafraid to talk to other frontliners, to patients and survivors, mayors and barangay officials, they don’t shy away from mixing with the tired and hungry masses lined up for cash aid, food packs, a series of signatures on their petitions for a favor from some person who has the power to send them home in despair. They find interesting subjects to interview for a sad story or a victorious feat – oh, how they dig for such nuggets when all around them the rest of humanity is locked in for fear of infection, contamination!
They have a knack for spotting “ordinary” people who have a colorful way of expressing their feelings. For example, that matronly lady who was mad at a policeman for arresting her just because she was standing outside her house and not wearing a mask. She was indignant: “We were not told about such a rule!” Lady, after 100 days, you never heard?
