Blaming the media is wrong

“What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.”

—Friedrich Nietzsche

By Alex P. Vidal

RETIRED Police Colonel Joel G. Garingalao, Sr., who went home to the Lord peacefully on May 9 while the world was battling the coronavirus pandemic, was one of the best councilors Iloilo City never had.

He was 86.

Col. Garingalao was a colorful figure in the law enforcement. 

Strict but approachable, he was one of the only few uniformed officials who earned the respect and admiration of the metropolis’ businessmen, politicians, and members of the media and academe.

In most of our interviews with him when he was the chief of the Jaro Police Station, he always looked at us straight in the eyes and spoke like a university professor. Colonel Garingalao was intelligent and understood some of the highfalutin vocabularies he used. 

I remember him as a very humble police official who single-handedly neutralized several holdupmen inside the SM Delgado in the early 90’s.

Criminals shook in their jeans when they saw him thus they opted to yield rather than suffer the harsh consequences,   

As a young boy in Iloilo City in the 70’s, I already heard the exploits of the then Philippine Constabulary (PC) captain; I saw him once literally chopping like Jacky Chan the neck of a drunken man who terrorized the Iloilo City Terminal Market. 

He was the father of Iñigo Garingalao, Iloilo City government’s Anti-Smoking Task Force (ICAST) executive director and one of the most admired and hard working city officials under the Treñas administration.

Rest in peace, Colonel Joel G. Garingalao Sr.

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ONE of the major flaws—or shall we call it crimes—of those pushing for the agenda of the conspiracy theorists is to blame the media, the “mainstream media” to be precise.

In all of their lamentations and rants mostly in the documentaries (we congratulate the Youtube, Facebook, among other social media platforms for their vigilance), they accused the media establishment—the “mainstream media,” the term and abbreviation used to refer collectively to the various large mass news media that influence many people, and both reflect and shape prevailing currents of thoughts—of being “corrupt” and “biased” and, to some extent, “part of the conspiracy to hide the truth behind COVID-19’s real origin,” among other outrageous but unsubstantiated charges.

Being part of the mainstream media, I can not tolerate this and I denounce this falsehood as below the belt, grossly unfair, unpalatable, and highly atrocious. 

This is one reason why they can’t gather sympathy from the educated and the well-informed. 

They talk thrash and their motives are thrash.

They also insult our intelligence by trying to push down to our throats incredible and iniquitous theories that are unproven scientifically, especially when they slander established and respected people in the community and government.

-o0o-   

Please stop blaming the media for doing their job. 

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, better known as the coronavirus, there have been many people blaming the media for several things. 

The first thing people are blaming the media for is the lack of supplies in grocery stores. 

A prime example of this is toilet paper and hand soap.  It is not the media’s fault for how others respond to news. 

It is a journalist’s job to provide information on any national and/or international news that could affect all of us. 

Secondly, the inaccuracy reporting. 

It is a journalist’s job to present true information to the public, especially about something new and serious. 

If you think that a source is not providing the truth, then check where you got the information. 

I am also so sick of seeing the public go on rants about how poorly informed the media represents the news, and then all of a sudden the public is not happy because the media are providing all the information we know.

The other day, I received a rude message from somebody essentially telling me that it was the media’s fault for everything and that I needed to check my facts or sit down and be quiet. 

I simply replied that all the information I have provided on my social media accounts, radio reports or television reports came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, press releases or government offices. 

It is exhausting to be told by the public on how to properly do my job. 

My job is to provide information so that you all can be informed and not misinformed. 

If you are confused about any major stories, such as the coronavirus, you can look up trustworthy media sources. 

Also, what mainstream media sources report are not the same as what local or state newscasts report. 

Maybe it’s me getting tired of people falsely reporting things or reporting things before they are confirmed, which leads me to my next point. 

Please wait for official confirmation from a press release and report before you post on social media. 

I noticed a post on Facebook about Eastern closing when nothing has been officially announced. 

The media are not spreading false news. The general public is. 

The media are just getting the blame for people inaccurately posting things on social media. 

The truth is the COVID-19 virus is officially a pandemic, Italy is on lockdown and Eastern, along with a handful of other universities, is extending breaks or canceling classes as safety measures.

The admonition came from Daily Eastern News’ Katelyn Eddington.

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(Here’s the continuation and last of two parts from the previous column about the viral conspiracy video removed by Youtube, Facebook, Vimeo for its inaccuracies and unproven allegations) 

Video Interview: Do you believe that this virus (SARS-CoV-2) was created in the laboratory?

Mikovits: I wouldn’t use the word created. But you can’t say naturally occurring if it was by way of the laboratory. So it’s very clear this virus was manipulated. This family of viruses was manipulated and studied in a laboratory where the animals were taken into the laboratory, and this is what was released, whether deliberate or not. That cannot be naturally occurring. Somebody didn’t go to a market, get a bat, the virus didn’t jump directly to humans. That’s not how it works. That’s accelerated viral evolution. If it was a natural occurrence, it would take up to 800 years to occur.

Scientific estimates suggest the closest virus to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is a bat coronavirus identified by the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). Its “distance” in evolutionary time to SARS-CoV-2 is about 20 to 80 years. There is no evidence this bat virus was manipulated.

Video Interview: And do you have any ideas of where this occurred?

Mikovits: Oh yeah, I’m sure it occurred between the North Carolina laboratories, Fort Detrick, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, and the Wuhan laboratory.

There is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 originated at WIV. NIAID’s funding of a U.S. group that works with the Wuhan lab has been stopped, which outraged many scientists.

Mikovits: Italy has a very old population. They’re very sick with inflammatory disorders. They got at the beginning of 2019 an untested new form of influenza vaccine that had four different strains of influenza, including the highly pathogenic H1N1. That vaccine was grown in a cell line, a dog cell line. Dogs have lots of coronaviruses.

There is no evidence that links any influenza vaccine, or a dog coronavirus, to Italy’s COVID-19 epidemic.

Mikovits: Wearing the mask literally activates your own virus. You’re getting sick from your own reactivated coronavirus expressions, and if it happens to be SARS-CoV-2, then you’ve got a big problem.

It’s not clear what Mikovits means by “coronavirus expressions.” There is no evidence that wearing a mask can activate viruses and make people sick.

Mikovits: Why would you close the beach? You’ve got sequences in the soil, in the sand. You’ve got healing microbes in the ocean in the salt water. That’s insanity.

It’s not clear what Mikovits means by sand or soil “sequences.” There is no evidence that microbes in the ocean can heal COVID-19 patients.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)