Now, I’m starting to get incensed with GMA news, and I believe it’s because of Mike Enriquez and what he brought to the news and newscasting in general. It may be funny when an impersonator mimics Mike Enriquez in a comedy routine but alas, the real joke is on us.
Mike Enriquez doesn’t deliver the news: he shouts them. He treats his audience as if they are all hard of hearing. When somebody said he should be a hard-hittin’ newscaster, he took it to mean literally. He took it to mean aurally. Maybe one could forgive him in the beginning because his roots are from radio broadcasting, but he’s been on it for years on television and somebody should tell him to tone down his voice--- particularly his bosses from GMA 7.
Mike Enriquez also points out what is already quite apparent. He treats everyone as if they were half-blind. For instance, just before the commercials are shown, he announces that in a small hick town, a bull went rampaging inside a supermarket as caught in a CCTV camera. He says: “O, ayun, nakita ninyo mga kapuso? O, ayun o, sumugod!”. He does this every time. He interjects his inane remarks into his news spiel. Somebody should tell him: “yes, everyone can see that, now stop pointing out the obvious!”.
Mike Enriquez, as the self-styled Imbestigador ng Bayan, also struts about like he’s Zorro: the defender of the poor and the oppressed. Yes, even in the newscast wherein he features himself. We want the news, we don’t want to see your adventures (or more likely, the adventures of your staff wherein you take all the credit as you narrate).
He ceased to be the dark knight of the oppressed for me years ago when I saw in one of the segments in his program the story of a supposedly abused student. This student was apparently being sexually propositioned by a superior in his school, so what the Imbestigador did was to equip that minor with a hidden camera and set-up a sting operation. The child met with the alleged sexual molester in a motel. Only then did they call the police. So when they tried to barge into the motel with cameras and police in tow, the motel management ran interference, fearing it would sow panic in their customers.
It was several hours later when they were finally allowed to secure the child. In the end, the molester was caught, the Imbestigador had good ratings but at what price? The child was molested under their own noses. Under the sting they had poorly planned. To my mind, they were as guilty as the child molester, perhaps even more so. To my mind, Mike Enriquez is also a child molester.
Of course, now, Mike Enriquez carries the Anak-Seal TV award as one of the most admired TV newscaster of children. Ay, if they only knew.
And this is what disturbs me most about this Mike Enriquez brand of newscasting: it’s being legitimized. It’s being accepted as good newscasting even by standard award –giving bodies. Gone are the days of no-frills newscasts from my youth from the likes of Ms. Tina Monzon-Palma and Ms. Cathy Santillan. The worse is, I can sense that the newscasters even from other channels are assimilating the Mike Enriquez Style.
When I watch the evening news, I want to watch more news. Not more newscaster quirks.
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