Just at a time when we have seen some exceptionally ugly displays in Panamanian journalism, the Legislative Assembly's Transportation and Communication Committee is again considering a law to license journalists here. In this whole process there has been no mention of the recent ugliness in our media, however. This is merely a matter on the one hand of a couple of self-interested organizations that purport to represent journalists trying to carve themselves sincecures similar to those enjoyed by leaders of the corrupt taxi syndicates, justifying themselves with a mix of pseudo-professional blather and outright racism and xenophobia; and on the other hand the discredited and corrupt political class again seeking to indirectly prohibit news coverage of their nefarious crimes.

Against the Sindicato de Periodistas, a so-called union that has no contracts by which the rights of journalists are protected, and the Colegio de Periodistas, a Noriega-era remnant that wants to force journalists to pay dues to them, Lucy Molinar, coordinator of the Forum de Periodistas, speaks for the best of us. She went before the committee and denounced the whole concept of licensing journalists as a gross violation of freedom of the press.

Ah, but it was easy for the politicians and wannabe labor goons to dismiss Lucy's eloquent plea. How could she be qualified? All she has going for her are the excellent quality of her work and a long record of ethical rectitude in journalism. But disqualifying her in the eyes of the ad agencies and the television stations whose standards the advertisers set, she's not blonde. Matter of fact, she's black. Thus Lucy is easily ignored when the name of the game is to throw anybody who's different --- all foreigners, and everyone whose degree is in law or some subject other than journalism, for examples --- out of work.

And meanwhile, we turned on our television sets to watch the news, which reported a particularly heinous double machete murder and attempted rape of a brother and sister in Colon province. The horror of it all was hideously compounded when reporters stuck microphones in the faces of the grieving parents and asked them how they felt about it.

And meanwhile we turned to the sports page of La Prensa and read all about how Rubén Rivera, who was kicked off of the New York Yankees for stealing a bat and a glove out of Derek Jeter's locker, was being unfairly punished because he's Latino. (Now, considering how when La Prensa publisher Ricardo Alberto Arias was Panama's ambassador to the United States and one of the consulates supposedly under his supervision was used to fence stolen Peruvian antiquities; and considering how as the publisher of La Prensa it is the newspaper's open and unapologized-for policy to pirate the work of Panamanian photographers and journalists; I can understand how La Prensa can't understand why professionals wouldn't want to work with a thief in their midst. After all, they work with maleantes in the Panamanian government and at La Prensa.)

And meanwhile in El Siglo, which got taken over last year by former Christian Democrat National Police Chief Ibrahim Asvat, they pubished necrophiliac pornography on the front page and softcore semi-nude cheesecake with lewd captions on their back page. Asvat shares at least one thing in common with Osama bin Laden --- both were members of a political organization that took on the name and symbols of a religion. Of course, the Christian Dems recently changed their name to the Partido Popular (we'll see just how popular at the next elections). I'm not for censoring this or any of the other gutter-level jounalism referred to in this column, but it should still be said that the sort of stuff we see in El Siglo is unbecoming of any former police chief and particularly one who wore the "Christian" label.

Ah, but in the Legislative Assembly no deputy spoke up for grieving families whose misery is compounded by abuse from journalists. No legislator spoke up for human rights. Common decency, and the values that our mass media teach to young Panamanians, weren't on their agenda. And Panama once again looks creepy in the eyes of most of the rest of the world.

© 2002 by The Panama News All Rights Reserved For information or problems with this page contact: editor@ThePanamaNews.com
News Business Editorial Opinion Letters Arts Reviews Community Fun Travel Galleries Calendar Outdoors Dining Science Sports Español Archive Front Page also in this section: Bush and the Bomb Cuba's anti-terrorist concerns RSF concerned about Cuban repression of the press AI on Caribbean death penalty decision