A Distorted Image

We are back in the limelight.

The hostage-taking incident last Monday showed the weaknesses of the PNP and the media. The incident could have been peaceful if the MPD conducted negotiations with dismissed captain Mendoza. The hostages could not have been exposed to the trauma of the incident for 12 hours if the MPD assured Mendoza that he can be reinstated in the PNP. Mendoza was not asking for too much. He was only asking for a single piece of paper from the Ombudsman to be reinstated.

The SWAT team obviously lacked training. They somehow forgot that they were dealing with a man who is probably as skilled as they were. They should have calculated the possible moves of Mendoza to disarm him.

The local government should be taking a lesson on good governance. When a sudden incident like this happens, they should secure the area. No civilians can go inside a crime scene. When a civilian was accidentally wounded, they should have started to close the area to prevent another accident to happen.

The media forgot their code of ethics. As a media practitioner, you must know what and what not to take footages of. The live coverage of the incident was obstruction to justice. The media should know when to cross the borderline. Their coverage on the capture of Mendoza’s brother only aggravated the tension inside the bus.

President Noynoy was himself a picture of his government’s passivity in incidents like this. His statements were all too late to alleviate the battered image of the Philippines. This is a test of his governance and ability to rule. His passive attitude towards this incident somehow sends a message across. He is a raw leader in need of more exposure to national threats and issues.

One hostage-taking incident proved to be enough to distort our country’s image. The hostage-taking incident was not the fault of Rolando Mendoza alone. The unskilled hands of the SWAT team and the MPD should also carry half the burden of betraying the Philippines’ image in the international limelight. The media’s obstruction of justice in the immediate scene only made matters worse.

This is one incident the world will find hard to forget. It was a showcase of a media too unethical and a government’s ineffective governance.

A Distorted Image

We are back on the limelight.

The hostage-taking incident last Monday showed the weaknesses of the PNP and the media. The incident could have been peaceful if the MPD conducted negotiations with dismissed captain Mendoza. The hostages could not have been exposed to the trauma of the incident for 12 hours if the MPD assured Mendoza that he can be reinstated in the PNP. Mendoza was not asking for too much. He was only asking for a single piece of paper from the Ombudsman to be reinstated.

The SWAT team obviously lacked training. They somehow forgot that they were dealing with a man who is probably as skilled as they were. They should have calculated the possible moves of Mendoza to disarm him.

The local government should be taking a lesson on good governance. When a sudden incident like this happens, they should secure the area. No civilians can go inside a crime scene. When a civilian was accidentally wounded, they should have started to close the area to prevent another accident to happen.

The media forgot their code of ethics. As a media practitioner, you must know what and what not to take footages of. The live coverage of the incident was obstruction to justice. The media should know when to cross the borderline. Their coverage on the capture of Mendoza’s brother only aggravated the tension inside the bus.

President Noynoy was himself a picture of his government’s passivity in incidents like this. His statements were all too late to alleviate the battered image of the Philippines. This is a test of his governance and ability to rule. His passive attitude towards this incident somehow sends a message across. He is a raw leader in need of more exposure to national threats and issues.

One hostage-taking incident proved to be enough to distort our country’s image. The hostage-taking incident was not the fault of Rolando Mendoza alone. The unskilled hands of the SWAT team and the MPD should also carry half the burden of betraying the Philippines’ image in the international limelight. The media’s obstruction of justice in the immediate scene only made matters worse.

This is one incident the world will find hard to forget. It was a showcase of a media too unethical and a government’s ineffective governance.

Go or No to Science Blogging

An article on the Nat Geo website was like a science textbook. The only difference is that it is published, not by a printing press but published in the world wide web. There has been a noticeable trend of journalism being practiced via the internet and surprisingly, it centers on science and its recent developments.

In Airships: A Second Age, engineers are now reported to release their designs of new aircrafts. This recent news about aircraft innovation and other related scientific topics are fresh cuts for journalists. Although websites like ScienceBlogs show a rather surprising number of journalists-turned-bloggers, this number is relatively small in comparison to journalists who stay out of science blogging.

Journalists who venture into the realm of science journalism encounter more problems than they did when they were ordinary journalists. In an article found in ScienceBlogs, a one-liner captures the struggle of journalists with experience in blogging about science. Our lack of tech support, combined with our lack of paychecks and a total blackout on any and all forms of communication has demoralized the entire community. For some journalists, this poses doubt whether writing about science is a good idea. Should we leave science writing to scientists who blog about recent scientific research and progress? Despite these problems, a blogger of ScienceBlogs gave readers some reasons why blogging about science is a hard task to stop. Readers of ScienceBlogs has shown importance to those few journalists who write about science. Journalists can easily find higher-paying writing jobs that give twice as much training as science blogging. As journalists, it is on rare instances where we find ourselves being given such importance by our readers.

Whether we should go for or avoid the realm of writing about science remains unanswered. As a future journalist, I can still see journalism flourishing in the world of science and technology. Like any other job, being a writer or blogger for science entails problems. Low and late pay and other occasional work-related problems are all part of a job and these are all part of journalism. The tip is to find ways on how to put a stop to these problems inside the office or workplace, not to avoid and leave science blogging to scientists. Journalists should find ways to survive as science bloggers and keep blogs about science alive and kicking.