Mauling incident of Vhong Navarro

News organizations determine the newsworthiness of events based on the news values of timeliness, significance, proximity, prominence, and human interest. This explains why matters related to celebrities and other personalities of prominence are reported in the media.

The media have a number of functions which include sources of information in the hope of helping the public make informed decisions.

And as new events unfold, the challenge for the media is to present, in limited airtime or space, a range of information that reflect the current state of the nation and the world.

In the case of the incident involving celebrity-actor-host Vhong Navarro, the media coverage can be justified because of the Navarro’s prominence. The alleged rape and the mauling incident also entail elements of significance related to peace and order. However, providing excessive airtime on reports related to a certain event, raises the question of the news organizations’ reporting priorities and the time they allot to each issues.

ABS-CBN 2’s TV Patrol provided 65 percent of its entire airtime while GMA7’s 24 Oras gave 43 percent airtime to reports on the incident involving Navarro.

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Other issues had to compete with the remaining airtime of which most were dedicated to the Navarro incident. These issues were: the signing of the last annex of the Bangsamoro or the Moro Islamic Liberation Front peace process, the demolition in Agham Road, Quezon City, Malaysia’s crackdown on illegal aliens, and deliberations in Congress on the Freedom of Information bill.

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Neither do the news and current events programs get as much airtime as other network programs like soaps and game shows.

Try to look at the day’s program schedule of each TV networks. Assess if you think they provide a good balance of entertainment and information related programs. You may also want to look at the issues reported in the primetime newscasts of each network and ask yourselves, are they providing enough information that you need? We’ll appreciate it if you can share with us your own insights.

Produced by the Center for Media Freedom & Responsibility
Supported by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.

This module is free and open for anyone to access. Materials from this module can be used as long as proper credit is given.

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