Di Ako Yun, MOC hehehe

Late Monday night, in the middle of the jester-in-exile's take-home work:

Middle-Eastern OFW Correspondent (MOC): hey man, looks like tonyocruz wrote about you today

the jester-in-exile (JEM): really

JEM: where

MOC: http://tonyocruz.com/?p=1119

JEM: ==> is reading

MOC: what do you think

JEM: wait

MOC: what do you think

JEM: wait

JEM: kulit eh

MOC: LOL

JEM: nah, it can't be me

And so begins our post for the evening.

***
Tonight while I was wrapping up a large chunk of take-home work, an OFW from the Middle East whom I know from a former life sent a rather dubious heads-up: apparently, journalist Tonyo Cruz wrote a post, with the title Don’t take it personally, apparently about something I had wrote previously.

I asked the fellow MOC, "How do you know it's about my post? Is it linked to my post and he's reacting directly to it?"

MOC replied that it wasn't, and urged me to instead "read between the lines."

So I tried. Really.

Tonyo's post was a defense of Dana Batnag's post on the lack of citizen journalism in the ARMM elections, of which I had given an answer to in a previous post (the post MOC assumes Tonyo was reacting to). That said, I can't quite see how MOC can make the assumption that Tonyo was reacting to my post.

Consider Tonyo's first point: "Firstly, Dana wasn’t looking for Manila-based bloggers who went to Mindanao to cover the event. She was looking for Mindanaon bloggers, especially those who live in ARMM and thus had that unique, first-hand look at the elections."

With that alone, Tonyo could not have been referring to my post; as he's a journalist, and as such I am sure that he has gotten his facts straight, he would not have glossed over that I made no mention of Manila-based bloggers. Here's what I said:

In a subsequent comment on her post in reply to Tonyo Cruz, Batnag said:

(D)id you ask the bloggers you know from Mindanao? What were they doing? Those from Davao or GenSan, for example, were near enough to cover the event.

Ah, but she has forgotten that she herself has the answer to her question. In the same post she says this in passing:

In another blog, a reporter had wondered if citizen journalists would eventually replace “professional” (only in the sense that we trained for it and it’s our bread and butter; citizen journalists usually have a day job) journalists.

...

Considering that the suspension of work at the ARMM because of the elections did not cover the bloggers of Davao or General Santos City, I think it disingenuous that Batnag even has to ask. The bloggers have day jobs; citizen journalism not being a blogger's bread and butter, would it not be reasonable for a blogger to go to work instead of going to cover the ARMM elections, despite the elections being nearby?

Quite clear to the literate eye would be the reference to Batnag's question asking about the Davao and GenSan bloggers. I'm very certain that Tonyo would not have made an error as elementary as that.

(Hay nako, MOC. Basahin mo naman kasi ng maayos. Tonyo was referring to a blogger who was talking about Manila-based bloggers. Di naman ganoon ang sinulat ko eh.)

But to move on... MOC's insistence that my post was that which Tonyo's was referring to with his second point saying "the blogger went to absured lengths as to connect the blog post to the non-issue that is 'blogging vs. journalism'" likewise does not seem to make sense to me. My post was about Batnag's question on the absence of posts about the ARMM elections, answering it with the two concepts in mind: the Philippine digital divide and citizen journalists having day jobs; interestingly enough, Tonyo makes reference to the digital divide as well and pointing out correctly the limits of citizen journalism with regard to the provision of content and the access to it.

(Hay nako, MOC. Lumang issue na yan. ARMM elections? Digital divide nga eh.)

However, if indeed Tonyo was referring to a suspicion I had with regard to the intent behind Batnag's question (my suspicion was that MSM wanted leads and wanted Googleable leads, and with the dearth of posts there was the resulting disappointment), there may perhaps be some basis for MOC's claim.

However, it is a claim that I do not give any credence to; I believe rather strongly Tonyo (a responsible journalist, I have been led to believe) would have made the effort to get his story consistent instead of writing a hodgepodge of inaccurate details and sweeping, misrepresentative claims. In no way had I taken Batnag's post personally, nor did I feel insulted by her post; my disappointment, however, stems from the possibility that MSM may have become lazy.

Perhaps this comment stung: "After all, their much-vaunted claim of 'self-regulation' has yet to yield tangible results"; however, can they prove otherwise? I submit that they cannot -- fact is, even if we have to limit our discussion to content scraping, MSM's been bad, been very bad, and been very very bad.

Perhaps that's why my dig at self-regulation stung -- because there isn't much of it, really. Paging the journalists who will set examples online.

(There's this other thing that makes the phrase "self-regulation" ironic, but we'll talk about that some other time.)

***
But to digress quite a bit from MOC's claim that Tonyo's post was about mine (which clearly it could not have been; I believe very firmly that no responsible journalist would make so rather glaring errors of fact, especially with a post that is readily reviewable), here's what Tonyo says Batnag may have been asking: What the hell is the situation in ARMM? Do they have internet there? Are there bloggers there? Were bloggers there victims of harassment during the elections? Did they have phone cameras for documenting the polls?

Besides the digital divide and the local bloggers' conflicting commitments, Councilor Pete Lavina (himself a blogger) had an interesting and complementary take, commented on the Blog Addicts post. Pete seems to have in mind another element that differentiates citizen blogging from MSM: content generation.

See, while MSM's content is by and large generated to cater to what the public wants, bloggers are the pretty much the masters of their own content. While MSM and its concern over ratings and circulation result to content being shaped by the tastes of the day, bloggers generally produce content that's of primary interest to them (I've been told that having readers enjoy what they write is a bonus).

That's the nature of the beast that is the blogosphere: user-generated content, and not ratings- or circulation-driven content. Unless the said set of bloggers are paid to write posts about some topic or other, the average blogger will quite likely write about what he wants to share to the public; it's not very likely that this blogger will write about something he isn't really interested in. If the ARMM elections are not as interesting to a blogger as, say, the latest developments on the Eraserheads' concert and Ely Buendia's condition, then that's the way his niche of cyberspace will be filled.

But let's quote Pete directly:

We’re here alright. But I guess most of us believe that elections in the ARMM are of no or little importance. Hence why blog about it.

I believe it was a clear political statement. No blog posts on the ARMM elections means it was seen as a non issue even if the modernized system of voting was tested there.

I believe the low regard on results of election in the region has to do with this cynicism rather than any cultural bias.

Whoop, there it is.

***
But to put a final nail on MOC's claim that Tonyo's post referred to mine, we'll have to go back to a question I asked in the outset: was Tonyo's post linked to mine and was he reacting directly to it?

I can understand Tonyo's refusal to link to the blogger he's reacting to; he did say, "I wonder if the blogger wishes to make his particular post a link-bait but I wish to give the benefit of the doubt."

I'm not quite certain that Tonyo did give the blogger the benefit of the doubt, though; as I write this, there still is no link that will refer us to the blogger in question.

I find that rather disconcerting, really. After Bong Dizon's iBlog 2 talk on linking and netiquette (PDF of presentation here), as well as quite a bit of personal reading on Tim Berners-Lee apparently having spoken of linking being a means of reference (links being analogous to footnotes), and conversations with fellow bloggers with regard to the importance of links to help people be on the same page and be in on the conversation (Manolo and Juned have been very persuasive on that point), I feel a bit let down by not being able to read the post Tonyo was reacting to. Although I am very sure that Tonyo reported on the post very accurately, I would've wanted to read it myself and quite possibly throw my own two cents into the pot.

Furthermore, with Tonyo being a journalist, I would've thought that he might've put the link up as a means of attribution; to identify the source, if you will. After all, the blogger put the post up in public -- I don't think that it's not the same thing as concealing an anonymous source.

See, without the link, it's no different from a DaWho entry -- a blind item. Without the attribution, the fairly strongly worded post of Tonyo's would be no different from rumor and innuendo... and I've been led to believe that blind items and innuendo good journalism doth not make.

Heck, if Tonyo was worried about the blogger's post being linkbait, he should've used nofollow.

(Hay nako, MOC. Unang mode of proof na referenced eh, wala pa. Sus. Di ako yun.)

***
Well, let's hope that Tonyo shares the link eventually, and so we can all share in the conversation. As I'm sure that Tonyo reported on the post accurately, I'm fairly certain that I'd join Tonyo in giving that blogger something to think about.

Later, all. Still have my day job take-homes to work on.



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