Columnists, Partisans and Conflicts of Interest

Two of Banayo’s columns, “Faking one’s poverty” (Malaya/Business Insight, Mar. 30) and “It’s Villar who should apologize” (Apr. 6, in response to Villar’s demand that columnists who had questioned his being poor should apologize) used other documents while detailing what differences (for example, what hospitals they would go to during a medical emergency) divide the poor and the not-poor.

Quezon III’s column on the same subject came later, pointing out the inconsistencies in the statements of Villar and Gilbert Remulla, Nacionalista Party spokesperson and a senatorial candidate, in three separate interviews (dzMM, ANC and ABS-CBN 2’s TV Patrol World) about who paid his brother’s hospital bills (See “Moving Target”, The Long View, Inquirer, April 5).

As pointed out by the columnists, the inconsistencies in Villar’s once-poor story were picked up in print and online articles and on television reports. But in the last week of March and the first weeks of April the media limited themselves to asking various personalities for their takes on what the columnists mentioned above were saying. Both ABS-CBNNEWS.com and Inquirer.net, for example, reported the reactions of Aquino III and Liberal Party candidates.

An April 26 news conference called by Villar’s mother and sisters failed to reverse the rapid decline in Villar’s ratings, despite Villar’s mother Curita’s breaking into tears and hi sisters’ alleging bias on the part of ABS-CBN and GMA-7 as well as GMA-7’s Arnold Clavio and Inquirer columnist Monsod.

It was almost inevitable that there would be claims that the documents the columnists used came from the Liberal Party. In the Mar. 30 episode of TV Patrol World, a reporter said the documents were sourced from the LP, although LP chairman and senatorial candidate Franklin Drilon denied in the same report that the party had anything to do with the release of the documents. Some reporters did say the documents came from an e-mail circulated by a certain “Truth be told”, but there was no attempt to find out if the owner of that e-mail account was in any way connected to the party.

2 responses to “Columnists, Partisans and Conflicts of Interest”

  1. PJR Reports July – August 2010 | Center for Media Freedom & Responsibility says:

    […] Columnists, Partisans, and Conflicts of Interest by Luis V. Teodoro with research by Rupert Francis Mangilit and John Reiner Antiquerra […]

  2. Sidebar: When is a columnist too partisan? | Center for Media Freedom & Responsibility says:

    […] (Read main story “Columnists, Partisans, and Conflict of Interest“) […]