Trashy! News exec slams ‘mean spirited’ Rappler for out of context report to bring Inquirer down

The Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Associate Editor for Readership has slammed Rappler for its failure to provide context to a report about the supposed “painful cuts” that the newspaper is undertaking to stay afloat amid the COVID-19 crisis.

In her September 5 column for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Rosario Garcellano said Rappler’s report titled, “Painful cuts: Inquirer offers early retirement as it struggles to survive pandemic,” is an “unsettling read because it portrays the nation’s biggest newspaper on its knees.”

Garcellano finds Rappler’s motives suspect for the detail it went into about the voluntary retirement packages and cost-cutting measures supposedly going on inside the Inquirer newsroom.

Rappler’s report said Inquirer also let go of some columnists and shut down its Metro section, which covers the local government units in Metro Manila, to save costs.

“[T]he very details of the newspaper’s cost-cutting measures indicate the source(s)’ strange eagerness to tell all—rather depressing for the weary observer committed to the idea that divulging confidential matters in one’s home or office is indelicate, inelegant, and ultimately mean-spirited,” Garcellano said.

The Inquirer newsroom executive said Rappler failed to point out that it’s not just the print medium that’s struggling to survive, but the media in general.

“The absence of context is so patent that the reader ignorant of the realities of newspapering, primarily the huge production costs now exacerbated by plunging advertising revenues, will be moved to tsk-tsk over how the mighty have fallen,” she said.

Garcellano said the last thing Inquirer needs are expressions of sympathy and “intrusive interest” at a time when its reporters are bent on bringing news to readers.

“[N]o one’s throwing in the towel just yet,” she said.

The post Trashy! News exec slams ‘mean spirited’ Rappler for out of context report to bring Inquirer down first appeared on Latest Philippine politics news today.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)