An experiment on blind items

Herbie Gomez

BLIND items are a vice serious radio commentators and columnists should quit. A blind item is nothing more than a gossip only resorted to because the radio commentator or columnist doesn’t have evidence to support his or her claim about a public figure or a prominent person. Since there is no evidence or because the one who uses it really has no balls, he or she makes it appear that the tale is gospel truth without naming the source of the story or the public figure he or she is referring to.

The worst thing a commentator or a columnist can do is base his or her opinion on text messages or Facebook posts by nameless rumormongers who are not really willing to stand by their story in court because they just heard it from a friend who also heard it from another source, and from another.

How can any intelligent person base his or her opinion on what’s clearly hearsay and condemn another person based on something he cannot substantiate because the information did not come from a firsthand source?

The problem with blind items is, anyone can easily fabricate one, and that’s not fair.

Here’s an experiment to see how we in media would react or shut up if the tables are turned on us. Let’s see what happens when media people become the subject of unfair blind items. I say these are “unfair” because there is no way any of these can be considered gospel truth at this time.

• Who is this news photographer wannabe with a face only a mother could love who’s addicted to nude photography? He pays teenagers, some below legal age, to pose for him inside hotel rooms.
• Who is this media person prominent among Cagayan de Oro netizens who jeopardized his academic career because of his relations with a young male student?
• Who is this radio personality who everyone in his neighborhood, including the collector from the electric company and jeepney drivers’ association, hate so much?
• Who is this media person who was fired after public school teachers identified him as the man who tried to extort a few hundred pesos from a campus canteen?
• Who is this media person who “sells” everyone, including a judge?
• And who is this champion of morality of a media person who destroyed his family because of his obsession with a sauna bath attendant many, many years ago? He subjects everyone but himself to high standards of morality.

Again, let me emphasize, that was just an experiment, to point out that a blind item is the lowest, purest, and most uncut form of gossip. There is no way of validating the story because it’s either single-sourced, anonymous or really has no credible source at all. What gives a blind item a semblance of legitimacy is also what makes it completely undependable.

Our list of blind items can go on and on. Unfair? Of course, blind items are unfair. Now, do you get the point?

Pastilan.