Mass Mediocre

Have you noticed how much TV news has deteriorated over the last couple of decades? If you’re too young to know the difference, let me educate you.

In the years before the 1990s, prime time news was delivered by well-trained professional presenters like Bong Lapira, Harry Gasser, Frankie Evangelista, Dong Puno and Tina Monson-Palma in a formal manner; much like the way it is done today by big international networks such as CNN and BBC without, of course, the high tech bells and whistles.

News presenters were a beautiful lot. They were carefully selected from among the better looking members of the population. They were highly educated and knowledgeable about current events. They were always well-dressed (in business suits) and properly groomed when presenting. In short, news anchors and correspondents then were good looking, well-educated, properly attired and believable.

English news was presented in plain English while Filipino news was presented in formal (as opposed to colloquial) Pilipino. Slang wasn’t used, except in quotations, and Taglish or Engalog was NEVER EVER used!

Entertainment, lifestyle and other trivial news was left for the latter part of the broadcast (time permitting) and never as part of the main news program. Therefore, watching prime time news then, one would not have become aware of the back-and-forth between Ruffa Gutierrez and his Turkish spouse; and no one would have cared.

Today, our news programs are peppered with showbiz scandals and trivia reports masquerading as news, reported by correspondents who look more like our domestics and speak with the same accents. No longer do these pseudo-journalists strive, or even pretend, to prepare for, nor research the news they report; or, at the very least the proper pronunciations of the words they use! Just last night, a senior news anchor (once a congressman even!) pronounced St. Tropez as saint tropis! To think that his network’s mother company is also an internet service provider; it would have taken just a few keystrokes to learn what the proper pronunciation was.

News correspondents don’t even care to dress properly nor act in proper decorum. And the networks don’t seem to care anymore how their presenters and correspondents look like!

Why is appearance so important? Look at the other TV news networks in the world. Their correspondents could pass as models. They go to the extent of dolling you up (as in the case of Veronica Pedrosa, originally with CNN now with Al Jazeera) to bring out the best in you. This is done because when you are presenting the news, you are also presenting your country or organization.

In today’s world where we shoot up all our broadcasts into space and are retransmitted by satellite all over the world, it pays to put your best foot forward at all times! Unfortunately, what we are presenting to the world are not our crème de la crème, rather, the least common denominators (easily identifiable by the masses) who are maybe not the worst but are certainly far from being the best!

How credible would a correspondent be if he were dressed inappropriately, could speak either English or Pilipino fluently or went on air unprepared (such as the infamous Michael Fajatin fiasco below)? What impression would they leave on a viewer from a foreign land? Would that not validate the oft repeated slur that Filipinos live in trees?

Putting your best foot forward?

I haven’t even scratched the surface of this mass mediocrity. We haven’t even discussed the idiocy of what stands for our daily fare of prime time news. That will be for another time.

Till then, ciao!