A PRIEST who runs a local radio station said Sunday, September 18, that Cebu media practitioners must have a blueprint for the task of telling the truth.
Fr. Roberto “Bobby” Ebisa said the truth should always be the “true north” in blueprint for media practitioners.
“The truth is just another word for God,” he said.
In his homily during the opening of the Cebu Press Freedom Week on Sunday, Ebisa said a lot of buildings are being constructed in Cebu City today. And if one enters the construction site, one can see workers carrying a blueprint.
He said the blueprint is something important in every construction because it contains the architectural and engineering design of the building. The blueprint dictates how a building will look like after the construction.
Ebisa said media practitioners need a blueprint, too.
“That blueprint is something that will guide us in everything that we do as media practitioners, especially that we are in these trying times. We have the social media, which doesn’t tell us the whole truth yet is being patronized by thousands. And we, who are legitimate, are considered to be biased,” Ebisa said.
The priest and radio station manager said media practitioners must ask themselves what is their blueprint and their compass.
Serve
To answer this question, he said, media practitioners must also answer another question: “Whom do we really serve as media practitioners?”
He said he remembered the story of St. Thomas More, a chancellor of England and a writer who did not agree with Henry VIII’s decision to annul his marriage with Catherine and was sent to jail and beheaded.
Thomas More’s daughter visited him in prison to convince him to take oath before the king so he could be saved.
But Mone refused.
Before his head was cut off, he exclaimed, “I will die the king’s good servant but God’s first.”
“God is the blueprint of Thomas More as a journalist,” Ebisa said.
“Don’t sacrifice the blueprint in our reporting. Don’t sacrifice the truth for the sake of personal gain,” said Ediza in his homily.
Ebisa shared the poem of Louis D. Williams Jr. but tweaked it to replace “men” with “media practitioners.”
He read: “The world needs media practitioners who cannot be bought; whose word is their bond; who put character above wealth; who possess opinions and a will; who are larger than their vocations; who do not hesitate to take chances; who will not lose their individuality in a crowd; who will be as honest in small things as in great things; who will make no compromise with wrong; whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires; who will not say they do it because everybody else does it; who are true to their friends through good report and evil report, in adversity as we as in prosperity; who do not believe that shrewdness, cunning, and hardheadedness are the best qualities for winning success; who are not ashamed or afraid to stand for the truth when it is unpopular; who can say ‘no’ with emphasis, although all the rest of the world say ‘yes.’” (VoxPop Cebu)
