CRY HAVOC and let loose the dogs of war.
That passage from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar makes the perfect sketch of the mercenary. As he prospers in chaos. Plays for pay in deadly games. Knows no friends. Holds no alliances. Kills for the highest bidder. And dies in nothingness.
Politics is war with its own breed of dogs. As rabid. More vicious. No politician worth his post is without his own kennel, even if all he can afford are stray mongrels. In this doghouse feed and breed the politician’s stock-in-trade mutts and hounds – his coterie of advisers, propagandists and publicists, and paid hacks-in-masquerade as mediamen.
That mediamen are oftentimes likened to mercenaries for their behavior, for their lifestyle, is no metaphoric quirk. As, believe it, they share a common heritage: freelancing.
Freelancers were among the first wave of mercenaries that appeared in history. So-called because they brought their own weapons with them – long lances – thereby saving their masters the trouble and cost of procuring them.
The discovery of the destructive power of powder, the invention of the cannon and the gun revolutionized warfare and rendered the sword, the bow and arrow, and the lance obsolete. The evolution of the art of war to higher levels of destructiveness and its high cost mutated the killing machine from the freelancer to the soldier of fortune.
The freelancer though took another incarnation in the newsman who sells his work or services to employers without long-term commitment to any of them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a freelancer in media. This is plain honest work. One gets paid for what one produces.
There is absolutely everything wrong in being a mercenary. Why, even the built-in thesaurus of the computer I am inputting this on lists mercenary as evil, wicked, corrupt, crooked, deceitful, dishonest, fraudulent, immoral, iniquitous, lying, machiavellian, manipulative, reprobate, roguish, scheming, shady, shifty, sinful, unethical, unfair, unprincipled, unscrupulous, untruthful, venal, vile, wrong. A virtual description of the Devil himself.
Being a media mercenary is farthest from being a freelancer. The latter sells his work. The former pawns his soul. The freelancer is unfettered to an employer, to whoever buys or publishes his work. The media mercenary is leashed to a master who owns him. Wholly. And therefore is expected to do his master’s every bidding.
Caveat canis . A common warning on the gates of the Roman villas at the time of the Caesars. “Beware of dog.” But be most aware of media dogs. It is not difficult to distinguish them from your common pressman. No, dogtags will not help in identifying them. But by their bark you shall know who their masters are. By their bite you shall know how they are fed. By their drool you shall know them. And yes, they always return to their vomit. Gross. Very gross.
(This piece appeared in my column Golpe de Sulat in Sun-Star Clark, Jan. 24, 1997. Reprinted here in keeping with the celebration of the Pampanga Press Club’s 60th anniversary.)
That passage from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar makes the perfect sketch of the mercenary. As he prospers in chaos. Plays for pay in deadly games. Knows no friends. Holds no alliances. Kills for the highest bidder. And dies in nothingness.
Politics is war with its own breed of dogs. As rabid. More vicious. No politician worth his post is without his own kennel, even if all he can afford are stray mongrels. In this doghouse feed and breed the politician’s stock-in-trade mutts and hounds – his coterie of advisers, propagandists and publicists, and paid hacks-in-masquerade as mediamen.
That mediamen are oftentimes likened to mercenaries for their behavior, for their lifestyle, is no metaphoric quirk. As, believe it, they share a common heritage: freelancing.
Freelancers were among the first wave of mercenaries that appeared in history. So-called because they brought their own weapons with them – long lances – thereby saving their masters the trouble and cost of procuring them.
The discovery of the destructive power of powder, the invention of the cannon and the gun revolutionized warfare and rendered the sword, the bow and arrow, and the lance obsolete. The evolution of the art of war to higher levels of destructiveness and its high cost mutated the killing machine from the freelancer to the soldier of fortune.
The freelancer though took another incarnation in the newsman who sells his work or services to employers without long-term commitment to any of them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a freelancer in media. This is plain honest work. One gets paid for what one produces.
There is absolutely everything wrong in being a mercenary. Why, even the built-in thesaurus of the computer I am inputting this on lists mercenary as evil, wicked, corrupt, crooked, deceitful, dishonest, fraudulent, immoral, iniquitous, lying, machiavellian, manipulative, reprobate, roguish, scheming, shady, shifty, sinful, unethical, unfair, unprincipled, unscrupulous, untruthful, venal, vile, wrong. A virtual description of the Devil himself.
Being a media mercenary is farthest from being a freelancer. The latter sells his work. The former pawns his soul. The freelancer is unfettered to an employer, to whoever buys or publishes his work. The media mercenary is leashed to a master who owns him. Wholly. And therefore is expected to do his master’s every bidding.
Caveat canis . A common warning on the gates of the Roman villas at the time of the Caesars. “Beware of dog.” But be most aware of media dogs. It is not difficult to distinguish them from your common pressman. No, dogtags will not help in identifying them. But by their bark you shall know who their masters are. By their bite you shall know how they are fed. By their drool you shall know them. And yes, they always return to their vomit. Gross. Very gross.
(This piece appeared in my column Golpe de Sulat in Sun-Star Clark, Jan. 24, 1997. Reprinted here in keeping with the celebration of the Pampanga Press Club’s 60th anniversary.)
