Scandals put party-list ahead in media coverage
CMFR Monitor of News Media Coverage of the 2007 National Elections:
Scandals put party-list ahead in media coverage
But Team Unity retains coverage edge over Genuine Opposition
The Arroyo administration’s Team Unity (TU) continued to be covered more than the Genuine Opposition (GO) by the three leading Manila newspapers and six TV news programs from March 17 to 30, the third campaign period monitored by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR).
But the most covered groups during the period were the party-list groups and personalities associated with them, although the coverage was often unfavorable because these groups were associated with court charges and accusations that some are either communist or administration “fronts.”
Another significant finding of the monitoring team—two faculty members and 25 volunteer journalism students from the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication, and the CMFR staff—”was the decline in the number of reports in the television news programs monitored as the number of TV ads from wealthier candidates like TU’s Prospero Pichay Jr. began to inundate the two leading TV networks.”
CMFR observed that “Television, which has considerably increased its reach (96 percent accessibility nationwide) since 2004 at the expense of radio, has become the medium most critical to national and even local campaigns, replacing even the grand rallies once usually held in plazas and other public places. The decline in the number of TV reports in the context of the steady increase in the number of TV ads, could once again put less wealthy candidates at a disadvantage in terms of lack of exposure to the TV audience, and, therefore, low name recall.”
The third CMFR report on media coverage of the elections may be accessed at its website. CMFR is issuing at least five reports during the campaign period, as well as a consolidated and final report.
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