Today’s Inquirer headline whines “We Asked for Ces, Got Angelo Instead”, quoting negotiators acting in behalf of the hostages. Well, Duh. A kidnapping is not a fast-food meal, where you get exactly what you ask for. In a kidnapping the kidnappers have the upper hand, in case this fact wasn’t obvious to the negotiators, and gets to chose who stays and goes. And how does this make poor Angelo Valderama, the freed cameraman, feel ? Like a turd, that’s how. I wish it were Ms. Ces instead of me, too. The Inquirer should think twice about running this sort of headline which hurts other people’s feelings.

But it should be no surprise that Ces Drilon was not released. Although it’s not politically-correct to say so, she’s the prize catch, the star of the show, so to speak. The rest are merely bit players, even respected academic and peace advocate Octavio Dinampo. Why would the Abu Sayyaf release her first when she’s obviously worth more than all the others combined, both in terms of ransom and publicity ?

That said, it might not be too early to do a post-event (I hesitate to use the word “post-mortem”) analysis, seeing as how Drilon and company will in all probability be released upon payment of ransom, sooner rather than later.

The Inquirer editorial for today, June 14, 2008, asks:

Why would TV Anchor-Reporter Ces Drilon and her crew place themselves in harm’s way to interview the latest mutation of the Abu Sayyaf bandit group ? Why put journalists in harm’s way ?

Why indeed ? The Inquirer’s attempt at a high-minded answer is valid. Sometimes there is no other way to get the story. While no story is worth a journalist’s life, risks must be weighed. The duty to inform the public often trumps the inherent dangers of going after a scoop.

But the changing face of Philippine journalism may also be the reason. It’s no secret that the business of providing news has been radically altered over the years. News organizations are not merely that, but entertainment conglomerates as well. Obvious case in point: ABS-CBN.

These entities exist not only to provide information, in the form of news, but also to entertain. With the entertainment part often predominating. No surprise, as entertainment, not hard news per se, is where the big money is. And the marriage of news and entertainment is seen most acutely in television broadcasting. Case in point: ABS-CBN again. There are as many clowns as there are serious journalists in this network’s line-up. Its sensationalistic, tabloid-type approach to delivering the news attests to its orientation: news as entertainment.

In this kind of environment, there’s tremendous pressure to create compelling content. It’s no wonder that a bright, enterprising and ambitious (she’s easy on the eyes too) broadcast journalist like Ces Drilon felt she had to go after the Abu Sayyaf story, despite the clear dangers. There’s no other way to get noticed, to stand out in this crowd of talking heads except to be there first, when the next big story breaks. Compounding the situation is the well-publicized network war between the two T.V. giants, GMA-7 and ABS-CBN, each trying to outdo the other and in the process blurring the boundaries between news and entertainment. Is there really a distinction anymore ?

The competition engendered by the rise of new media may also be a factor. Mainstream media has to deal with the tremendous amount of news and information going around the internet at warp speed. MSM has to fight to keep itself at the forefront of the information and entertainment marketplace. One way is to create unique content. For journalists, this simply means going after the scoop, and beating everyone to it, with all the attendant difficulties and complications.

A recent post by Amee pointed out another another possible reason why Ms. Drilon is in the pickle she’s in now. Quoting Julie M. Moos from Poynter Online in an article “Journalism continues to be a risky occupation”:

Journalists are no longer seen by others as objective … The cover of neutrality has been blown away now, and the combatants and guerrillas see them as on one side or the other.

If journalists feel increasingly targeted because of their profession, that may be because they are.

“The rest of the world knows how to get attention,” Scherer says. “Targeting a journalist will get attention because journalists give attention to each other.”

Which is not to say that there may not have been other, more personal reasons for Ms. Drilon to have gone to Sulu. In the cutthroat world of T.V. broadcasting, Ces Drilon more than held her own. The psychic, and material, rewards of being a topnotch T.V. reporter is certainly not something to be sneezed at. And Ces Drilon is top-tier and knows it. The rush must be awesome and hard to resist.

She was smart and street-savvy, she may have thought. She pulled it off many times before and there was no reason why she could not do so again. She had a good crew and solid contacts. As Alfred E. Neuman would say “What, me worry?”

As it turned out, she had plenty to worry about. Let’s just hope and pray that she does not pay too high a price for her, and her news organization’s, miscalculation.

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