One-sided and editorialized

JEERS TO The Daily Tribune for publishing a one-sided and editorialized report on Vice President Jejomar Binay’s interview with ABS-CBN’s  Noli De Castro.

The Tribune published the story “VP bares Noy, LP  demolition by perception operations” on the front page of its July 3 issue. It aired Vice President  Binay’s comments on his resignation from the Aquino cabinet and his son’s suspension as Makati mayor.

The report cited Binay’s interview with former vice president and news anchor Noli De Castro on his program Kabayan (DZMM TeleRadyo,“Video ng umano’y pananakit ng mga pulis sa Makati, inihirit“, July 1) as its only source, where he condemned the administration’s supposedly baseless allegations against him.

Instead of providing balance through context or comments from the other party, the Tribune highlighted Binay’s side and painted him as an underdog trying to keep up “with almost all the guns the three branches of government trained on [him]”. It claimed that this “demolition by perception plot” was meant for Binay “to emerge as the most hated man in the country in the coming days” and to urge him to “kiss goodbye his chances of getting elected as the country’s 16th president.”

The report also labeled ABS-CBN’s ANC as part of the “yellow media” and berated the network for “aiding the yellow administration in its demolition by perception plot” against Binay by not showing the entire footage of the June 30 chair-throwing melee outside the Makati City Hall. ANC purportedly “played up” the absence of Manila mayor Joseph Estrada, thus “making it appear that VP Binay has lost the support of the former president.”

The CMFR Ethics Manual emphasizes the need for balance and fairness in journalism: “Usually called objectivity, neutrality in the sense of avoiding bias either for or against one side is equally necessary to achieve the principle of justice. This includes avoidance of words and phrases that imply judgment—prefer the neutral ‘said’ to the judgmental ‘emphasized’ or ‘noted’—as well as reporting the facts in a straightforward manner without any attempt at interpreting it.”