Journalistic ‘knowing’

Undoubtedly, there are many things that we sense or “know” are wrong or corrupt. But, here’s the rub: we don’t understand the depth or breadth of the wrong or the corruption until these are thoroughly investigated.

Or, in the absence of an official probe, enterprising journalists, keeping true to their profession, doing the hard work of proving things that we “sense or know” are wrong and corrupt, will suffice.

Corollary to the point, investigative news reports don’t really break a lot of new ground. More often than not, what true-blue journalists investigate and write about are mostly what we readers “think” we already know about what’s wrong or corrupt.

Now, if that is what overtly partisan information peddlers and paid troll armies on social media claim to also be doing, there’s a conspicuous difference.

One obvious difference is that when these anarchic social media chatterboxes are confronted and challenged to give proof about the “open secrets” they’re blaring about, they often have nothing else to say.

Why they are able to get away with such tomfoolery is because many of us don’t closely follow the news, probably for lack of time or effort.

In journalistic “knowing,” however, merely reporting an “open secret” on what’s wrong or corrupt, which people often say they don’t find at all surprising, isn’t the point. The point is “proving” it.

Take one notorious example. We all “know” and often gripe about the gobbling up of agricultural lands by housing and commercial developers, to the prejudice of our food security.

Yet, we don’t factually know how the powerful interests had concocted or manipulated the present scheme to become what it is now.

But the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) painstakingly reported in 2021 that something definite was done to correct this.

Then, the House passed its version of the National Land Use Act (NLUA), seeking to establish clear parameters on land utilization and thus limit the capacity of developers to find land. The House, despite its sordid reputation, was surprisingly on the right track.

The proposed land use law, however, came to naught after the Senate environmental committee, chaired by former Senator Cynthia Villar, sat on it.

Ms. Villar offered a host of reasons for her inaction but gave no categorical answers on conflict-of-interest questions. After all, her family made their enormous fortune in real estate development.

Now in the 20th Congress, her daughter, Sen. Camille Villar, chairs the same Senate environment committee.

Similarly, we all “know” roads should be sturdily constructed. This is in order primarily to avoid transport crises like that triggered by EDSA’s necessary but postponed rehabilitation. Yet, we only complain.

In EDSA’s case, the government is intently focused on finding ways to assuage the expected traffic pain. But the government has yet to tell us if they’re doing it right this time, if they’ve contracted a meticulous contractor, and if they’re planning to use newer concreting and asphalting technologies.

No major news outfit has yet done an exhaustive report on the EDSA rehab.

But news outlets are pointing the way by initially reporting that Japanese firms are offering additives that would make the asphalt pavement last for 25 years, or about new concreting technologies that absorb flood run-off.

At any rate, there are still so many commonly held “open secrets” about what’s wrong or corrupt that journalists can help prove. Hopefully, responsible journalists don’t lose sight of that challenging and daunting task.