The headline ruined it all

I refer to the article "Thousands plant trees, but cutting continues" in Philippine Daily Inquirer dated 26th August 2006. I was disturbed by the fact that the otherwise very positive and inspiring story was marred by a sidestory about cutting trees. The sidestory was not even substantiated as barely two sentences were written about it while the rest of the story was about the tree planting effort across the country. By golly, I could not fathom how it made to the headline. Common sense tells us that cutting will never end as furniture industry is a staple in the country. While it is not a secret that illegal logging persists, for all we know the woodcarvers described in the story were legitimate.

The sidestory about the cutting of trees (or was it woodcarving) was very out of place, lacked substance and maliciously added to sensationalize the article which, I believe, could have been more effective without it. The stakeholders in the tree planting endeavor made a commendable feat and should have been given due credit. Unfortunately, their effort was tainted by unnecessary injection of sensationalism.

PDI never learns. Just last week, an issue carried an article about Jim Paredes where he was headlined to have given up hope in the country when he immigrated to Australia. PDI was forced to apologise to Paredes after he slammed the paper for the inaccurate and malicious headline.

Negative stories are not the only ones that sell. I wish PDI treated the tree planting story with positive light, alas, the headline ruined it all.