Free TV, the tabloids and elections

THE PHILIPPINE media have often been accused of bias in the coverage of elections. But inadequacy rather than partiality has been their more telling flaw.

Content analysis of the coverage by the major networks and broadsheets of Philippine elections since 2007 shows that in most cases only individual practitioners rather than the institutions themselves tended to be biased for or against this or that candidate. While during the Presidential campaign of 2010, bias among a number of well-placed practitioners—a bias rooted in their actual involvement in the campaigns of some of the candidates—could have arguably helped make a difference in the middle class perception of the issues, this sour note was neutralized by the public affairs programs’ pro-active effort to provoke the leading candidates into revealing what they stood for, and by the broadsheets’ recalling their track records.

On the other hand, however, there was little change in free television and tabloid coverage. And yet these sectors of the media have the widest and longest reach, and therefore the most potential for helping develop a more informed electorate. Rather than realize that potential, they have squandered it by consistently and mistakenly underestimating the intelligence of their audiences through their focus on celebrity news, violence, and scandal. For the most part coverage in the news programs of the former continued to be reactive and without context, while coverage in the tabloids of public issues was at most superficial if not practically non-existent in favor of sex and violence.

These sectors of the media could minimize their focus on celebrity news and sensationalism in favor of, among others and to begin with:

1. Pro-active coverage. This means abandoning the practice of relying on press releases from various political camps, among the consequences of which are the media’s being transformed into the public relations mouthpieces of whichever politician has the better media group, and the media’s abdicating its essential role as both the reporter and interpreter of events.
2. Providing context. The most basic expression of contextualization during elections is that of providing readers, listeners, and viewers the track records of the candidates for whatever posts are at stake (this year, for senators and congressmen as well as governors, mayors and other city officials), in addition to providing a summary of the issues involved at each level and the candidates’ positions and proposed responses to them.
3. Covering the party-list elections. Free television and the tabloids could provide the electorate truly invaluable service by providing their audiences background information on the reasons for the party list elections, the issues involved in its controversial history, particularly why certain groups have been delisted, and information on what the party-list groups stand for to guide voters in selecting which party-list groups to support.
4. Assigning experienced reporters to election coverage. The tendency to assign just anyone, and in some cases the most inexperienced, derives from the assumption that elections are not of interest to media viewers, readers, and listeners.
5. Providing pre-coverage training of reporters on automation and such basic election documents  as the Constitution and the Fair Elections Act. Familiarity with these documents can enrich coverage, and can also provide reporters with a guide on what issues can be the subject of explanatory and investigative reports, such as, for example, on the sources of campaign funds.

Free TV and the tabloids have the potential to qualitatively boost citizen awareness of the issues and voter capacity to elect the better leaders that for the most part and for so long have eluded the country. Otherwise wasted, they are resources that need to be reoriented and maximized for the sake of a better informed and more discerning electorate.