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More Than
Marginal
(By Michael Alan
Hamlin
January 15,2001
You may be as surprised as I was
to learn not long ago that despite the difficulty in finding and
keeping performers in today’s competitive market for intellectual
resources, newspaper editors have very little difficulty recruiting
journalists. In a world in which business lives with a chronic shortage
of IT workers and achieving executives, there appears to be an oversupply
of columnists and writers. However, publishers — the business
side of the news — have the same recruitment problems other
businesses have.
That means two things to me. First, is that there must
be a lot of fairly mediocre executives out there who are enjoying
high salaries and attractive perks at least in part because there’s
so few people chasing after their jobs. And of course a lot of what
would otherwise be competition is working elsewhere, in the U.S.,
Europe, or other parts of Asia.
Second, is that there are a lot of journalists and
columnists competing with each other for their editors’ and
their readers’ attentions and affections. This should mean
that readers are daily served liberal quantities of really high
quality editorial and commentary. Okay, I can hear you chuckling
already. Although it is true that international editors have more
quality journalists and columnists to choose from than they can
use, most domestic papers in Asia just have more journalists and
columnists.
Now that I’ve upset yet another important sector
of the Asian economy, and without getting into the boring details
as to why quality often doesn’t match editorial standards,
I’ll get to my point. And the point is that in a sea of mediocrity,
really good editorial (such as that found in the business section
of this newspaper) stands out. And no one stands out — with
the possible exception of Solita Monsod — like Tony Samson.
That’s probably why Samson is the only local columnist
to successfully publish not just one collection of his columns,
but three. The third, elegantly titled, Margins, was published last
year, and is rapidly selling out at local bookstores. Although he
is occasionally known to give into a serious bout of reflective
contemplation, Samson is more regularly an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek,
not-too-casual observer of life, and particularly the distinctive
uniqueness of life in the Philippines.
Margins comes in four parts. The Personals is perhaps
best exemplified by his piece, "Out of the Closet." While
the average reader might ordinarily at a glance assume that Samson
intends to address the not-so-new openness and tolerance toward
alternative lifestyles, Samson intends nothing of the sort. Instead,
his purpose is to address an issue much closer to the hearts of
most readers (at least one assumes): the difficulty of dealing with
the dilemma of dwindling closet space.
Rightly, Samson observes that, "Next to a hanging,
nothing concentrates the mind more clearly than contemplating closet
space, especially when this runs out." The reason this is so
is that, "Closets are like life. They can accommodate only
so much junk." And like life, crowded closets regularly force
their caretakers to clean them up or risk of familial or social
backlash. They force one to prioritize, and make decisions about
the truly important things in life, like which five neckties do
I really want to keep? A cluttered closet is like a disorganized
life without direction, or purpose.
So after writing this column, I shall seek some direction
and purpose by cleaning mine out. My closet, that is.
My favorite selection of columns is found in the Asides
section, wry comments about man’s fragile humanity and insecurity.
Insiders is a close second, since it deals with organization man,
and the struggle to survive corporate infighting to get and stay
ahead of the pack of other mediocre but greedy and power crazed
middle managers.
In "Social Animal," Samson wonders, "It
seems to be a social truism: Organize a cocktail party and they
will come." He is struck by the ease of attracting people to
parties to which they have no real interest. "Most people do
not even stop and wonder why anyone would throw a party merely to
introduce a new product. Or why people would actually show up for
such an artificial event in the first place," he muses.
But that doesn’t mean cocktail parties aren’t
high stakes affairs for their organizers. And the measures of success
can be complex. First of course is the requirement that the hotel
driveway become a parking lot of vehicles packed with the rich and
beautiful. Next, is that this particular category of rich and beautiful
be present not to actually eat or drink but to lend prestige, the
Ahhh factor that is so difficult to quantify but so basic to the
boss’s positive appraisal.
And then of course there is the "Sense of Rumor"
always prevalent in Philippine society, and nowadays absolutely
frenzied thanks to texting and e-mail. It’s bad enough, Samson
ruminates, that most rumors are exactly that: nothing of substance.
But even so, there is a social urge to treat even rumors confirmed
to be untrue as hypothetical instances of insulting or scandalous
behavior. No matter how far fetched a rumor may be, Samson observes
that, "there will almost surely be a call for a boycott. Can
a press conference and a new acronym be far behind?"
And, "it is politics where rumor almost completely
displaces fact." If that weren’t bad enough, rumor mongers
are accorded a perverse sense of respect: "So entrenched are
the rumor mongers that their authority is unquestioned." In
fact, the popularity of rumors and the enthusiasm with which they
are perpetuated and diligently grown suggests that the principal
interest of listeners and readers is the untruth, rather than the
truth. Perhaps even the scandal that didn’t happen, over the
one that did.
But there’s one truth you should take to heart.
And that is that Margins is a collection that belongs in your library.
(Mr. Hamlin is managing director of the consultancy
TeamAsia and the author of two books on Asian economies and managing
in Asia. His latest book is The New Asian Corporation: Managing
for the Future in Post-Crisis Asia. His e-mail address is mahamlin@teamasia.com.ph.)
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