Slivers of broadcasting light

Hmm, I wonder. How many people did rely again on their old -- but still working -- radio at the onslaught of the typhoon Reming? And how many of these radio listeners have similar thoughts as Nestor Torre's?

"THE recent blackout after Typhoon 'Milenyo' cut its swath of destruction across Luzon darkened our TV screens and forced us to get answers to our many questions from our trusty —and rusty—battery-operated radio," Torre wrote here. "At first, we were grateful for the information on the storm that reporters and program hosts provided. Not long after, however, we realized that, much too often, we were getting opinion, speculation or rumor, not real information."

He also said: "Commentators were still yakking and opining off the top of their heads, deejays dithered and snake-oil salesmen slithered, hosts of religious shows intoned banal truisms as though they were the newly unearthed 11th and 12th commandments—definitely not the programming that listeners yearning for genuine solace and inspiration wanted to hear during their darkest moments."

"Happily, some slivers of broadcasting light pierced the glop and gloom," Torre noted. "We enjoyed a dramatized satire on corrupt officials, a late-night show dispensed pithy advice to the gaga lovelorn, and some good music salved listeners’ tattered and shattered sensibilities."

Read more here.