Columnists, Partisans and Conflicts of Interest
What later turned out to be a fake report was first circulated on the Web by a now-inaccessible blog site on April 8, and later through email and social networking sites. The “report” alleged that Aquino, then leading in the presidential surveys, had been clinically depressed in 1996 and had undergone psychotherapy.
Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III (photo by Lito Ocampo)
ABS-CBN’s TV Patrol aired its contents in an April 8 report. The program claimed that two sources from the Nacionalista Party had provided the information. TV Patrol’s rival news program, 24 Oras (24 Hours) of GMA 7, did not report it. But the network’s late night news program, Saksi (Witness), broadcast the report with the warning that the Internet was the source of the report.
TV Patrol focused on the alleged report’s contents before getting the reaction of Aquino III and Fr. Carmelo Caluag, the alleged author of the report, who denied any connection with the university’s psychology deptartment and said he was the principal of the Ateneo High School when the report was supposedly made. Bandila (Flag), ABS-CBN’s late night newscast, reported it from the same angle as the TV Patrol report. But Saksi’s lead was on the reaction of the parties involved, who said the document was fraudulent.
The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) said in a statement in reaction to the TV Patrol report that the news program had erred in emphasizing the contents of the fake report rather than the denials of Caluag and Aquino. CMFR said that ABS-CBN seemed to have been driven by the desire to scoop its competitors. But ABS-CBN said it was driven more by the “fast spread of the document on the web,” and claimed that Caluag and Aquino had reacted while TV Patrol was already airing—which of course raises the question of why the network did not postpone airing its report while it was getting the reactions of Caluag and Aquino.
The print media reported the claims of the “report” only a few days after it came out on the TV news programs.The Philippine Star reported it April 10, but focused on Villar’s denial that the NP was the source of the document. Villar had been crying foul over alleged dirty tactics against him weeks earlier. The Inquirer reported on the same day that Aquino had asked ABS-CBN for an apology for its erroneous report on his mental health.
[…] Columnists, Partisans, and Conflicts of Interest by Luis V. Teodoro with research by Rupert Francis Mangilit and John Reiner Antiquerra […]
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