On Charice and PH Media

A number of news items were posted online and aired on TV by the Philippine media about Charice these past few months. Most of them were centered on her boyish looks, sexual preference, family feud, career and finances. And, of course, these became so sensational and controversial that netizens jumped in and fired their (thoughtless) tweets and posts online. Anything about Charice seems interesting for many regardless of what topic it is. If there isn’t any topic or news coming from Charice or her management, netizens and the PH media are ready to make one. Oh, these people really “love” talking about her!

Wait. Let me make a correction. It’s not really “regardless of what topic” because many have chosen to ignore Charice’s participation in the United Nations Women’s theme song titled “One Woman” and I have been wondering why. If I am not mistaken, only Rappler picked it up and wrote an informative article about it and Charice’s representing her dear country. This blogger tweeted the links to the UN press releases about the inspiring song for women to the Philippine media outfits like ABS-CBN News and GMA7 News but NADA!

Even if they missed my tweets, I didn’t think they missed the many tweets of Chasters about it that went on for at least two weeks. If they could get photos of Charice’s new looks from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, they could have gotten the photo, videos and news feeds of Charice singing “One Woman” with other international singers. I thought the Philippines is a proud member of the United Nations and a staunch proponent of women’s rights. Was I mistaken? Or, maybe, our media are telling us the kinds of news that are worthy of announcing to the public. I can actually hear them say, “Let’s go for sensationalism and controversies because they sell; because they grab online traffic.”

These were what the PH media (except Rappler) missed to pick up as worthy to share with the public:

UN Women's tweet with Charice's photo

Charice’s screen shot is even used as thumbnail for UN Women's video on the making of their theme song.

Yet, the PH media did pick up these photos:

  

The PH media even wrongly reported (or at least insinuated) that the girl in the above photo was Charice’s girlfriend which triggered laughs from those who knew better. Where has the practice of verifying information before broadcasting gone? I have yet to read or hear apologies from those who published the wrong information.

And here’s something funny…

The photo above was cited as one of Charice’s “new” look which some online media immediately picked up. Some netizens even added that they miss the “old” Charice as caption for this photo. What’s funny is that I have seen this photo way before Charice graced the cover of the Preview Magazine in their January-February 2012 issue.

Regarding the “new” but actually "old" photo of Charice, some netizens might resort to the Mr. Ricky Lo “how-would-we-know” attitude. In his article “Go ahead, Charice, be yourself!” which was posted on March 13, 2012, Mr. Lo referred to Ms. Courtney Blooding, Charice's former manager, as Canadian. On September 25, 2012, he posted another article entitled “Where’s Charice’s manager coming from?” In this article, he wrote, “[Ms. Blooding’s] the same woman who once dismissed the Philippine media as ‘irresponsible’ for not knowing what her nationality is. How would we know when nobody even knows her?”

Ms. Blooding is an American. If only Mr. Lo did a good enough research, he would not make the mistake of referring to her as Canadian. And I thought Mr. Lo already realized his mistake. He, again, referred to Ms. Blooding as Canadian in his article “Charice listens to nobody but her heart” which was dated May 21, 2013. It seems that one year is not enough time to find out about Ms. Blooding’s nationality. Or is Mr. Lo just being stubborn and not willing to correct his mistake? Yet, he insinuates that Charice is being stubborn with the title that he gave his article. Somebody should knock some sense into Mr. Lo’s style of journalism.

Mr. Lo also has referred to Charice as his inaanak or that he is her godfather not only in his articles but also in some TV shows. Now, I ask him these—“What have you done for Charice as a godparent? What have you not done for her that you should have? Are your articles your way of helping and guiding your inaanak?"

What is interesting is that Mr. Lo is a columnist of The Philippine Star, the same paper where Mr. Bum Tenorio, another Charice’s godparent, runs a column. Mr. Tenorio posted an article dated May 28, 2013 entitled “You’re the man, Charice!” Please pardon me. I cannot help but compare the works of the two godparent-columnists. Both of them referred to Charice as their inaanak in their articles. Mr. Tenorio, however, has respect and love for Charice that any reader, Chaster or not, would feel in every word that he wrote. To Mr. Bum Tenorio, I say, “You’re the man!”