Bias
Bias
Updated 11:52pm (Mla time) Dec 19, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 20, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
PERCEPTIONS have their own reality. This is what we must remember when we take the measure of a Filipino icon like Fernando Poe Jr. It is also what we must keep in mind when we seek to understand his widow's angry and startling accusations of media bias.
The redoubtable Susan Roces did not mince words when she berated the ABS-CBN network for alleged bias in its news coverage. "Hindi ko kikimkimin ang sama ng loob ko (I will not suppress my hurt feelings)," she said. "People don't want to watch your news coverage because you capitalize on personal hurt," she told Karen Davila, the new anchor of "TV Patrol World."
In such cases involving personal hurt, perceptions harden almost into religious truths. For those who share them, no explanation is necessary; for those who don't, no explanation is possible.
To be sure, Roces did offer an explanation (echoed the next day by opposition leader Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr.). She complained about ABS-CBN's use of "tight shots" during the campaign, which tended to minimize or ignore the size of FPJ's adoring crowds. "You did not show the crowd, you weren't showing the people," she said.
This is a serious accusation, made more so by its specificity. But Roces' outburst was not the first time it was raised. In truth, almost every media organization received this kind of complaint from the Poe camp once the campaign started. It would not be unfair to Poe's media handlers to state bluntly that, instead of yet more questions about Poe's lack of a platform leading the news stories, they would have preferred photos or footage of the day's crowds.
Certainly, if what Roces meant was that ABS-CBN did not give the Poe presidential campaign the Erap treatment, she would be completely in the right. The television network that has helped elect several senators and at least one vice president did not cover Poe this year the way it covered his bosom buddy Joseph Estrada from the 1998 election right up to the deposed president's impeachment trial in 2000.
This makes ABS-CBN a victim of its own past practices.
But there were in fact many times during this year's campaign that the network was thought to be biased for FPJ.
Let us cite only one instance. The first major crisis the Poe campaign confronted was the series of disqualification cases filed against the candidate; any propaganda value from the cases, however, was quickly countered by an even more sensational allegation: that the incriminating documents against Poe were reportedly forged by a group under the direction of Ricardo Manapat, the director of the National Archives then.
In the Senate hearings conducted and then hurriedly concluded by Poe supporter Sen. Edgardo Angara, employees of the National Archives emerged to serve as hostile witnesses to Manapat.
ABS-CBN was not remiss in its coverage of both the scandal and the hearings. More to the point, it did not fail to run favorable stories about the witnesses. The preferential treatment reached its height when a network reporter followed three witnesses, then under Senate custody, on their triumphant if temporary return to the National Archives. The three were feted at every turn, receiving encouragement from what seemed like the entire agency, from the moment they arrived to the time they left. But why did the witnesses return that particular day? The real answer became clear only at the very end of the report, when the witnesses, waiting at the building's driveway, filed back into an ABS-CBN service vehicle.
A careful viewer would have reached only one conclusion: The witnesses had been brought back to their office, and were now being returned to the Senate, by the network itself, for the sake of the story.
But judging from Roces' remarks last week, this instance of anti-Manapat (and thus pro-Poe) coverage is not something Poe's supporters appreciate, or even remember.
And thus we come to the blind side of perceptual thinking: we only see what we want or are conditioned to see. We do not remember our neighbor's hundred acts of kindness; we only notice the one unfortunate exchange of words. We do not notice the thousands of policemen doing their duty; we only see the cops who take bribes. That, sadly, is the reality.
Updated 11:52pm (Mla time) Dec 19, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 20, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
PERCEPTIONS have their own reality. This is what we must remember when we take the measure of a Filipino icon like Fernando Poe Jr. It is also what we must keep in mind when we seek to understand his widow's angry and startling accusations of media bias.
The redoubtable Susan Roces did not mince words when she berated the ABS-CBN network for alleged bias in its news coverage. "Hindi ko kikimkimin ang sama ng loob ko (I will not suppress my hurt feelings)," she said. "People don't want to watch your news coverage because you capitalize on personal hurt," she told Karen Davila, the new anchor of "TV Patrol World."
In such cases involving personal hurt, perceptions harden almost into religious truths. For those who share them, no explanation is necessary; for those who don't, no explanation is possible.
To be sure, Roces did offer an explanation (echoed the next day by opposition leader Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr.). She complained about ABS-CBN's use of "tight shots" during the campaign, which tended to minimize or ignore the size of FPJ's adoring crowds. "You did not show the crowd, you weren't showing the people," she said.
This is a serious accusation, made more so by its specificity. But Roces' outburst was not the first time it was raised. In truth, almost every media organization received this kind of complaint from the Poe camp once the campaign started. It would not be unfair to Poe's media handlers to state bluntly that, instead of yet more questions about Poe's lack of a platform leading the news stories, they would have preferred photos or footage of the day's crowds.
Certainly, if what Roces meant was that ABS-CBN did not give the Poe presidential campaign the Erap treatment, she would be completely in the right. The television network that has helped elect several senators and at least one vice president did not cover Poe this year the way it covered his bosom buddy Joseph Estrada from the 1998 election right up to the deposed president's impeachment trial in 2000.
This makes ABS-CBN a victim of its own past practices.
But there were in fact many times during this year's campaign that the network was thought to be biased for FPJ.
Let us cite only one instance. The first major crisis the Poe campaign confronted was the series of disqualification cases filed against the candidate; any propaganda value from the cases, however, was quickly countered by an even more sensational allegation: that the incriminating documents against Poe were reportedly forged by a group under the direction of Ricardo Manapat, the director of the National Archives then.
In the Senate hearings conducted and then hurriedly concluded by Poe supporter Sen. Edgardo Angara, employees of the National Archives emerged to serve as hostile witnesses to Manapat.
ABS-CBN was not remiss in its coverage of both the scandal and the hearings. More to the point, it did not fail to run favorable stories about the witnesses. The preferential treatment reached its height when a network reporter followed three witnesses, then under Senate custody, on their triumphant if temporary return to the National Archives. The three were feted at every turn, receiving encouragement from what seemed like the entire agency, from the moment they arrived to the time they left. But why did the witnesses return that particular day? The real answer became clear only at the very end of the report, when the witnesses, waiting at the building's driveway, filed back into an ABS-CBN service vehicle.
A careful viewer would have reached only one conclusion: The witnesses had been brought back to their office, and were now being returned to the Senate, by the network itself, for the sake of the story.
But judging from Roces' remarks last week, this instance of anti-Manapat (and thus pro-Poe) coverage is not something Poe's supporters appreciate, or even remember.
And thus we come to the blind side of perceptual thinking: we only see what we want or are conditioned to see. We do not remember our neighbor's hundred acts of kindness; we only notice the one unfortunate exchange of words. We do not notice the thousands of policemen doing their duty; we only see the cops who take bribes. That, sadly, is the reality.
posted by Dante at 7:58 PM
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