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Blog EntryAug 30, '07 2:09 PM
for everyone
I'm sure most of you Pinoy readers have heard about the recent capture of the infamous leftist personality known as Jose Ma. "Joma" Sison in the news. I really don't have much to say to that, except that the capture probably had something to do with the humongous bounty on the man's head. Matter of fact, that's probably the same reason why all them militants are busy with the riots: they wanted to be the one to bag Sison's ass.

My issue right now is with this front-page article the Star printed out today. You can find the story here. It's a pretty well-known fact that while journalism as an art borders more on getting information than writing a good article, I've noticed that while most Pinoy newspapers are getting better and better at digging up the juiciest pieces of news to feed the growing public demand for sensationalism, the entire enterprise's going down in terms of article quality. Some, like the article I just pointed out, even defeats the purpose of being a headliner anyway, by going beating around the bush like a dog who can't decide where to take a piss.

Take, for instance, Mr. Porcalla's continuous iteration that the entire capture of Joma Sison was a joint venture between the Philippine and Dutch governments. I mean, sure, you need to underscore the possibility, but repeating it six friggin' times in the same bloody context throughout the first part of the article was just really sad.

The same thing goes for the rest of the details in Porcalla's headliner. He had enough information to draft a somewhat respectable article in thirty minutes, but he had to go about it like a gumshoe, splitting up ideas that could have very well constituted a very meaty, hard-hitting paragraph, and repeating details like a parrot, making the article both tedious and confusing.

I really don't know. I used to have this really, really big respect for the Philippine Star, preferring it even to the masses' newspaper (The Inquirer), but just recently - think a few days ago - I read one of their regulars in the Lifestyles section type a really long and pointless tirade about how his wife just had to order spaghetti and meatballs whenever they went to Italliani's, whereas the entire point of his article was about the new dishes the resto was serving, which he outlined in a scant five paragraphs, after the tirade about his goddamned "darleng."

Whoever that was, I hope you're reading this. I would like to stick a knife into your gut, first for having a good porcini risotto, and secondly for turning my brain to mush in ten seconds flat.

That goes for the rest of the journalists who're making a big-assed joke of the entire Philippine trade. I hope you fuckers all go to hell and burn like the useless pigs you are.


EDIT @ 12:47: Here is a sample of good journalism: an interview with Bill Gibson, the guy who wrote Neuromancer, Virtual Light, Mona Lisa Overdrive and is technically credited as the guy who coined the word cyberspace. Read that and weep, paragons of the maligned article.
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fudgecookie18 wrote on Aug 30, '07
kindly use a bigger font. Sorry, i'm a font addict, na o oc lang ako. Arial 10 is ok, but going as low as 6 or 8 pixels is just cruel to the eye.
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kilawinguwak wrote on Aug 31, '07
fudgecookie18 said
kindly use a bigger font. Sorry, i'm a font addict, na o oc lang ako. Arial 10 is ok, but going as low as 6 or 8 pixels is just cruel to the eye.
consider me told off haha.
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