By DANNY O. SAGUN

THE governor, we learned, has called on the local media to unite and help him achieve his vision for a progressive Pangasinan.
Gov. Amado T. Espino issued the call during the Media Night at the Capitol grounds last Thursday where he addressed some 200 or so media personnel. We failed to honor the invitation because of an earlier commitment.

Perhaps, what the governor meant was for the two major clubs in Pangasinan to unite, fuse into one and carry a single name as before when there was only one media organization, the Pangasinan Press and Radio Club.

His sentiment is similar to those we have already interviewed in our ongoing research study on local media practices. Quite a number of local mediamen and local public officials wanted the Pangasinan Tri-Media Association (Patrima) and PPRC to fuse into one club again.

If we recall right, Patrima came about when the decades-old PPRC began to be the subject of criticisms because of the presence of scalawags, bad eggs, or taliban or doron you may call them, in its fold. The PPRC leadership seemed helpless addressing the growing problem. By definition by mediamen themselves, a “taliban” is someone whose primary reason for visiting politicians and government officials is to get easy money from their patrons. Gathering news materials is already secondary or even out of the question already.

That practice has exasperated many public officials already, mostly mayors. One city mayor pointedly told us that purging of the media rolls is badly needed to preserve the dignity of the press.

The number of media persons has so swelled to atmospheric proportions leading one long-time practitioner to comment that he does not already know who is who among the hundreds (more than 300 if we base it on the number of greeting cards sent to the media by Gov. Espino) of press people in Pangasinan alone.
Patrima thus evolved. Strict screening of members was its adopted policy. Any recalcitrant member is expelled. It’s sad to note however that the four-year-old-club is facing problems similar to those plaguing the older club, making it hard to distinguish one from the other now in terms of ‘upright’ and ‘model’ members and officers.

But who is really responsible?

The media associations may have their rules or policies but the ball is really in the hands of radio station managers and publishers or editors. They should know what their men are doing in the field and who are those using their media outfit for personal selfish ends.

Back to the issue of unity. Even without such call for unity by the governor and for the media to help him bring about progress, the local press knows what to do in the exercise of its roles in society.

For the two clubs to merge into one, we do not know what their officers and memberships really want. PPRC registration with the SEC has not been renewed while Patrima has been duly-registered. Controversial issues as to who should be accepted as members and what to do with the bad eggs have to be fully addressed.

We think, the two groups if ever they think of unity, should form
an organization that is tainted-free, fresh and clean.

(Thus far, that seems to remain a pipe dream, Patrima’s lofty ideals notwithstanding – Ed).