Tulfo covers Tulfo
TV-5’s Tulfo Brothers
TV5’s Aksyon provided the most airtime on the incident last May 7 with 25 minutes and 35 seconds devoted to it (or 71 percent out of the total airtime of the reports) in the form of reports and interviews.
TV5 failed to disclose that one of Aksyon’s anchors, Erwin, is Ramon Tulfo’s brother. Erwin provided a lead-in to the first report on the scuffle, without telling viewers of his relationship with Ramon. Erwin and his co-anchor would later interview Ramon on the details of the incident.
(Ramon Tulfo also told his side of the story in T3, the program before Aksyon and hosted by his brothers Erwin, Raffy, and Ben. The said May 7 episode of T3, when the Erwin, Raffy, and Ben, made several threats to Santiago and Barretto on air, resulted in the suspension of the show’s 20 days, and later, three months by the Movies and Television Review and Classification Board or MTRCB).
In his Aksyon report, Erwin’s lead-in script went: “Hindi po sa boxing ring o sa basketball court nagaganap ang pinakamaiinit na bakbakan. Tulad po ng nangyari kahapon, kundi sa loob ng NAIA Terminal 3. Ang mga sangkot, ang celebrity couple na sina Claudine Barretto at Raymart Santiago. At sa kabilang korner naman, si Mon Tulfo, ang veteran columnist at brodkaster. Huli po sa video kung sino talaga ang dehado (The hottest fights do not happen in the boxing ring or basketball court, but inside NAIA Terminal 3. Involved were celebrity couple Claudine Barretto and Raymart Santiago. And in the other corner, veteran columnist and broadcaster Mon Tulfo. Who really was at a disadvantage was caught in video.)”
Aside from reports about the incident, Erwin and another on- camera anchor interviewed the network’s resident legal analyst who provided his opinion that Tulfo did not violate any law.
24 Oras’ coverage ran for 47 minutes and 42 seconds while TV Patrol devoted a total of 27 minutes and 59 seconds of their entire newscast to this incident. The first twenty minutes of 24 Oras were devoted exclusively to the incident, while TV Patrol’s reports related to it were spread out throughout the newscast.
How much airtime did primetime television newscasts devote to the NAIA 3 brawl? (Click on the photo below for the interactive infographic)
24 Oras also included an exclusive, real-time telephone interview with a certain “Anna” who claimed that she witnessed the entire incident. Her six minute interview came right after a report recounting how “Anna” came forward with her testimony.
And yet, most of the questions asked by the anchors of both programs to the parties involved had already been answered by the reports they themselves presented earlier.
24 Oras anchor Mel Tiangco played it a notch higher with questions like: “Nasaktan ba ‘yung ano mo, ‘yung alam mo na ‘yung pagiging macho mo? Tigasing kolumnista e ‘di ba? Talagang nakikipaglaban ang Mon Tulfo pagkatapos ngayon nakikita ng buong bansa na nagkaron kayo ng gulo dun sa NAIA? Does that hurt your ego, Mon?” (Did the incident hurt your macho reputation? You’re known for being a fearless columnist, and yet the whole country saw how you figured in the fight in NAIA? Does that hurt your ego, Mon?)
24 Oras did not try to get the two parties to engage in a face-off. TV Patrol did. TV Patrol anchor Noli de Castro even asked Santiago to stay on the line, while he interviewed Tulfo. The anchor then proceeded to ask them for their reactions to each other’s statements – with research from Ana Marie Angelica D. Pascual #
[…] the last two years since the change in administration, the country witnessed, among others, an airport brawl between a tri-media columnist and a group of actors triggered by his taking photographs of a […]
[…] By Vergel O. Santos | Posted on 21-09-2012 TweetThe sensitive subject of sanctions against the media has been raised with me through questions that, not unlike in a school exam, calls for straight answers. The questions have come in fact from journalism students, provoked by an actual case—that involving the brothers Tulfo, practitioners all, who closed ranks against news subjects, a show-business couple, with whom one of them had gotten himself into a brawl. […]