halfwhiteboy

I've come to live seeing the Philippine Daily Inquirer repeatedly sport a front-page design reminiscent of a magazine for a while now. It's that generous use of a single photo, most often unrelated to any news article, that spans the entire width of the paper and with the Inquirer logo re-positioned to suit the photo. And as with magazines that layer sections of a photo subject to sit in front of its logo but leaving everything else in the background, the Inquirer does that as well. Not that I'm complaining. In fact, I sort of took a liking to this style because it instantly brightens the front page. And with that I often joke that it wants to be a magazine. Last Saturday, however, the Inquirer took this magazine style to a whole new level:

(This is an update on yesterday's post, Today: A double whammy in irresponsible journalism .) After a barrage of criticisms online, and after the Philippine Daily Inquirer posted an apology on Facebook and on their website , the paper showed they really meant their apology and just how I wanted it to be -- by publishing it on their front page today. Yay! I now rest my case, with the Inquirer at least. Arnold Clavio, on the other hand, remains unapologetic and cocky.

What a day! Filipino netizens were (and still are) up in arms today over two journalistic booboos: one by a leading broadsheet and another by an anchor of a leading TV station. Sensationalism First off was the unabashedly tasteless and insensitive montage of Demetrio Vicente, the 70 year-old witness from the defense panel of the ongoing impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona, published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer . The caption read: "Character witness: The many faces of Demetrio Vicente on the witness stand. He's no ordinary witness after all. He's the cousin of the Chief Justice whose wife sold him seven parcels of land in 1990, where he now grows bonsai." Vicente testified yesterday, March 13, on the purchase of seven parcels of land from the Chief Justice's wife, which the prosecution alleges was not declared in Corona's Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN), the subject of Article II of the impeachment case.