The Missing Beats

They are also described as minor, small or dead
The Missing Beats
By Venus L. Elumbre and Don Gil K. Carreon

ONE OF media’s functions is to get people to pay attention to topics they need to be concerned about. Politics and governance are two issues people need to pay attention to, but are they all that matter? How about health, education, the environment? Don’t these problems have a more direct—and often, more severe—impact on a person’s life? And how about foreign policy? Do we have one?
In the quest for the “newsworthy,” Philippine newspapers have all but removed stories on health, the environment, foreign policy, and education from their front pages.  Except in times of epidemics, calamities, the first day of a school year, and the impending execution of overseas Filipino workers, stories on these areas hardly get noticed by the press.  When they do get noticed, they are usually relegated to the inside pages.
PJR Reports did a content analysis of 10 Manila-based broadsheets to find out how stories related to science and technology, education, health and medicine, environment, agriculture, and foreign affairs were treated in these newspapers.
Scanned were the Dec. 1 to 14, 2006 issues of the Manila Bulletin, BusinessMirror, BusinessWorld, The Philippine Chronicle, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Malaya, Manila Standard Today, The Philippine Star, The Manila Times, and The Daily Tribune.
The results painted a rather dismal picture.

A close look
Out of 12,803 reports published during the two-week period, only 53 were on science; 87 on education; 249 on health; 146 on foreign affairs; 143 on the environment; and 137 on agriculture.
The findings also showed that the reports on science, education, health, environment, agriculture, and foreign affairs—which totaled 815—accounted for only 6.37 percent of the total number of stories during the study period.
These kinds of stories hardly received front-page treatment. Only 83 reports (10.18 percent) appeared on the front pages.
On the other hand, most of the reports on science, education, environment, health, agriculture, and foreign affairs (543 or 66.63 percent) landed on the inside pages, while 189 reports (23.19 percent) appeared in the special sections.
Except for science, all the other types of stories were written mostly by community reporters or correspondents.
Most of the science articles came from wire agencies: 27 from the wires and 19 from the local press.
The study also found that most of the dailies relied heavily on government agencies as sources for news reports. For example, statements from the education secretary made it as news. The same goes for the environment, health, and agriculture stories. Stories from the provinces merely quoted local officials.

Biggest in the Bulletin
Among the dailies, the Bulletin published the biggest number of education, health and medicine, environment, and agriculture reports. Only the Bulletin devotes twice-a-week sections for stories related to education (“Youth & Campus” and “Schools, Colleges, Universities Bulletin”), the environment (“Environment & Nature”), and agriculture (“Agriculture”). The paper also has two weekly health sections, namely, “Well-being” and “Health & Science.”
Although the Bulletin allotted more space to these kinds of stories than other papers, a good number of these were either news briefs or press releases.
An exception, however, was an article in its Dec. 2 issue, which showed how the US’s shift to the use of ethanol in producing animal feed would affect the poultry and livestock industry worldwide, including the Philippines (“US shift to ethanol for biodiesel threatens global animal feed supply”). The report explained how the shift could lead to higher prices of animal feed in the Philippines which imports most of these from the US.

Seasonal beat
One beat that gets seasonal notice is education. The media pay much attention to the education sector’s problems and develop-ments only during school opening in June and the few weeks that follow. Except when there are scandals, controversial proposals, or leadership changes in the Department of Education (DepEd), stories from this beat come infrequently.
The newspapers published a total of 87 education reports during the period, or an average of six reports a day. The Bulletin ranked first in the number of education reports with 42 stories or 48.28 percent of the total education stories. At far second is the Star, with nine reports.
Yvonne Chua, who covered the education beat from 1981 to 1985 for the defunct Philippine Daily Express, said that even at that time, people had tired of reading the same old stories about the sector’s recurring problems like classroom shortages, flooded school buildings, and lack of teachers. Editors, who are always looking for “new” stories, ended up using fewer education stories as a result.
But Chua said this should not be the case.
“Ang daming issues na puwedeng tingnan, even for perennial problems (There are many issues that can be looked into),” Chua said. “You can put together a menu of options to look at the sector in a different light.”
Reporters covering the education beat should not just focus on the DepEd, she said. The beat also includes the private and public school sector and the different stakeholders from education officials down to the students, she added.
Chua, formerly training director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and a University of the Philippines (UP) journalism professor, also said there is a lack of stories initiated by education reporters. For example, the controversy on the bidding process for public school textbooks funded by the World Bank came from the Senate, she said.
Records of the procurement program for textbooks were readily available to education reporters, but the story came out only after Sen. Panfilo Lacson called for an investigation last October 2006.

The science of science reporting
Due to difficulties with understanding jargon and complicated concepts, science-related beats such as the environment, health and medicine, and science and technology similarly get less attention.
The study found that only 53 stories on science and technology came out during the period. The Star had the biggest number of science stories at 14. The Tribune did not publish any science report at all.
But the newspapers actually did better in health reporting. A total of 249 health stories were published during the period. All the papers, except for the Times and Tribune, allot regular sections for stories about health and medicine.
It was also in the health and science beat where many enterprising stories were written. For example, BusinessWorld reported how chronic pain can become a major health concern for Filipinos in the future because this ailment is not sufficiently understood (“Pain emerging as major health concern,” Dec. 8-9). The report also cited the different types of chronic pain, and the Philippines’s capabilities to address these.
The Inquirer exposed the problem of lack of access to health care by infants and mothers (“UN Millennium goals: RP performing ‘poorly’,” Dec. 2). It got the views of health experts who said the country fared poorly in addressing child and infant deaths.

Big challenge
Diana Mendoza, who covered the health beat for the defunct Today newspaper,  said that while some reporters perceive the health beat as a minor assignment, it is really a very challenging beat.
“A reporter has to do a lot of study and research to be able to understand the issues and write about these in a language that is digestible to the reader,” Mendoza said.
Angelo Palmones, vice-president of the Philippine Science Journalists Association and director for special projects for dzMM, said that journalists must think of innovative ways to make science-related stories more accessible to their audience.  He said most beats have science components that are not being used by journalists as story possibilities.
The coverage of environmental issues has increased in the last two years, but it mostly consists of reports on calamities that have visited the country, said Von Hernandez, campaigns director for the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace.
Saying the quality of the articles could still be improved, he added, “Journalists must explain issues and not just focus on scandals and personalities.”
A case in point was the news about the Biofuels Act. Recently signed into law, this legislation was not sufficiently explained by the press in terms of its possible effects on public health and the environment.
Another example was the coverage of the super typhoons that visited the Philippines late last year. Hernandez said the media focused only on the damage and loss of lives caused by the typhoons and did not explain how global warming was causing the spate of inclement weather.
Climate change is a natural phenomenon wherein the climate in the entire planet or the regions changes over time. Scientists, however, are becoming convinced that human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, are speeding up the process.
Hernandez said the reportage on this issue should not be parochial and must be presented as a global phenomenon.  He also said there is a need for sustained coverage on environmental issues such as the oil spill in Guimaras.
“People tend to think of these issues as resolved when the coverage stops,” Hernandez said.

A once-premier beat
Another neglected beat is foreign affairs, which was once a premier beat.
Just like the science-related beats, covering foreign affairs is difficult because it demands knowledge of international relations. According to Chua, “It requires (journalists) to spend more time reading and learning. Sometimes people don’t have time to read.”
During the study period, there were 146 reports on foreign affairs. Most of them appeared in the Times (22), followed by BusinessWorld and Star, with 21 reports each. Standard Today had 20 such stories.
A total of 59 (40.41 percent) out of 146 foreign affairs reports appeared on the front pages. Many of these front-page stories were about the US and the Philippines’s battle for custody of a US serviceman convicted of rape in Subic.
Chua, who also covered the foreign affairs beat, said reporters do not have to settle for breaking news but must also look for long-standing issues that need to be closely examined.

Helpful editors
In helping reporters develop an appreciation for these beats, editors can be crucial. In this, Chua said she was fortunate because she had an editor who appreciated the education beat.
“I was supervised directly by Rolly Fernandez who also happened to have covered the education beat. Chua said. “He taught me that stories that have an impact are those that examine policies, problems, issues, and concerns of various sectors.”
Like Chua, Mendoza credited her editors, who regarded the medical beat as a major news source, with helping her see the importance of this assignment.
“I was thankful that the editors believed that health cuts across political and economic issues, so they perceived it as important as the defense or the Senate beat,” Mendoza said.
Still, the initiative must come from the reporter.
“There is always a chance to do in-depth stories in all the beats. It is the responsibility of the reporter to do that—to look and think beyond government policy as stated in government press statements and to consider his or her beat as a sector or as an issue in itself,” she said.

No minor beats
Editors interviewed by PJR Reports said their papers do not regard any beat as either major or minor.
“All of these beats are important to us, we don’t categorize them as minor or major,” said Inquirer associate editor Abelardo Ulanday. The treatment of a news report depends on the immediacy of its impact, regardless of the beat where the report comes from, he added. Senior reporters in the Inquirer, however, are the ones who get to cover “sensitive” beats such as Malacañang and other high-profile government offices, said Ulanday.
BusinessMirror editor-in-chief Lourdes Molina Fernandez said the paper regards science, health, education, and other similar beats as major assignments. “Covering these beats comprehensively helps us fulfill the basic information requirements of our readers,” she said.
Except for the Tribune, Chronicle, Malaya, and Standard Today, most of the papers have at least one reporter covering each beat. Chronicle managing editor Raleigh Jaleco said his newspaper does not yet have reporters covering the science, health, and agriculture beats.  Having started publication only last September, the Chronicle for now covers just the “core beats,” he said.
Reporters who do get assigned to the science, health or agriculture beats, however, find themselves covering several other offices as well. This is because assignment is determined by geographical location. In an area such as the Elliptical Road in Quezon City, for example, the Department of Agriculture (DA) is located beside the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).  Almost a stone’s throw away is UP, where the weather forecasting agency Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Admi-nistration (Pagasa) is also located. A reporter covering the DA would usually be covering the DAR, UP, and Pagasa. The arrangement is deemed to be convenient and practical for a newspaper.
But having several agencies to cover also prevents reporters from gaining expertise in a beat, which can be done only by spending more time in it. Instead, there is hurried reporting and the production of stories that lack depth, context, and adequate sourcing.

Rising importance
With the diminishing emphasis on beats like education and the environment, the public suffers.
“You cannot ignore the education sector, “Chua said. “You cannot have a country that’s illiterate.”
According to Hernandez, the environment has become a survival issue for Filipinos.
In the book Uncovering the beat (1997), journalist Howie Severino suggests one way that reporters can make environment stories relevant to readers: “Spend more time in a community… and learn about their environment. After putting human faces on specific environmental issues, ask analysts or professional researchers how prevalent these problems are in the province, region or even nation. Then present policy makers and local officials with your findings and ask them what they’re doing about them.”
When these stories regain their prominence in media, then perhaps journalism will regain much of its relevance, too.

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