If you haven't noticed yet, the new plugs for the news and current affairs department of GMA-7 show snippets of the man in the street endorsing the station's newscasters, and they now include the line "Walang bahid-pulitika." They utter the line in their long-winded closing spiels ('Walang kinikilingan, walang pinoprotektahan, serbisyong totoo lang." What a mouthful.). Naturally, by this they do not mean they do not deal with politics- but that they are not tainted by politics. Such an aggressive push makes you wonder if they are hugely threatened by the return of Noli de Castro and Korina Sanchez to primetime television.
True, De Castro was the vice-president in the previous administration; Sanchez is married to a vice-presidential candidate in the May elections; and, Ted Failon is a former Leyte congressman. But to say they have been tainted by politics is to express an opinion- a cynical statement that needs to be challenged. Innocent until proven guilty, right? They have not been convicted of crimes and they are no longer in power: Why should they be stopped from going back to the industry they came from?
Even if we assume that they have been tainted, why should GMA have to point it out? No matter the subtlety with which they deliver it, it makes them no different from the kind of politicians they are distancing themselves from. They are not above the mud-slinging they supposedly abhor in defense of journalism as an industry with integrity. Why don't they just let the people come up with these observations themselves? Do they think the people are ill-equipped to determine which newscasters are credible?
GMA-7 should let their reporting- and not their marketing and advertising- speak highly of the kind of work they do.
