Why the youth are staying away from the polls

THE LOW turnout of registered voters for this year—especially the first-time voters—reflects the youth’s distaste for Philippine politics.
But the voters’ apparent refusal to participate in the elections does not reflect apathy but their belief that some candidates are not worthy of their votes, said Commission on Elections spokesperson Ferdi-nand Rafanan. The Comelec official spoke on April 20 in a symposium on voters’ education at the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication.
The symposium, titled, “Y-Me? The Role of the Youth and Media in the May 2007 Elelctions,” was organized by the Student Council of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication in recognition of the crucial role that the media play in the elections.
Voters rely much on the media for information regarding candidates and their platforms. Thus, there is a need to check if the media sufficiently respond to such needs.
This year’s coverage of the Senate and party-list elections has been “soft and muted,”  mostly because most of the opposition candidates were refusing to engage regime candidates in a discussion of the most crucial issues in the elections, said Luis V. Teodoro, UP journalism professor and CMFR deputy director.
According to Teodoro, the failings of the media in the elections coverage are due to personal, not institutional, bias over  particular candidates, as well as lack of skills and other professional limitations.
Explaining the importance of public opinion polling, Clarrisa David, a communication research professor and a Social Weather Stations fellow, said that surveys “measure what the public thinks because otherwise, people speculate.”
She added, however, that surveys are sometimes misused by the media, or perhaps misunderstood. She cited instances where broadsheets published wrong information based on press released from SWS.
David warned that media could suffer from reduced credibility if they are found to be giving wrong information
“Media exposure and coverage are critical to successful campaigns. The performance of the press, the accuracy, fairness and balance of reporting and commentary are significant issues in the projection of a candidate,” said Hector Bryant L. Macale, senior staff writer of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) and assistant editor of the Philippine Journalism Review Reports.
In 2004, CMFR launched a landmark project that moni-tored the media’s coverage of the presidential elections. It was the first time that citizen groups were involved in a broader media watch of press coverage and that television programs were included in the monitoring project. It was also the first time that findings were sent out to assist news organizations in assessing their own performance.
The CMFR study found that although there were efforts to improve election reporting, the coverage focused on the candidates’ campaign sorties and the race between the two leading presidential candidates. The 2004 elections coverage also ignored the Senate, party-list and local campaigns.
This year, CMFR, which has been monitoring media’s performance during elections since 1992, is again monitoring the coverage of the senatorial and party-list campaign and elections. This is being done with the help of UP journalism professor Danilo Arao and a team of journalism students. The 2007 monitor included six television news programs and the front pages of three major broadsheets. Like in the 2004 monitor, this year’s monitor reports, which can be downloaded online at the CMFR website (www.cmfr-phil.org), will be compiled in one publication.
CMFR also came out with supplemental reports related to the elections. These reports examined the coverage of selected tabloids, AM radio programs, and TV public affairs programs. A report was also made on the political advertisements on TV and print. The supplemental reports are also included in the upcoming CMFR publication on the elections coverage. – Shirene Alexandra Abel and Angela Heidi Hoyumpa

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