Wrong backgrounding

(Biased reporting? Inaccurate report by a newspaper? Sensationalized TV or online coverage? Outstanding background report on an issue? Starting today, Freedom Watch will regularly carry media monitors by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.)

Jeers to The Manila Times for not getting its facts straight in its July 26 story “Motive suspected to be ‘personal’: Station manager survives slay try.”

The report was about the recent attack against Ferdinand Yngson, station manager of GMA-7 Network’s Super Radyo dySB based in Bacolod City. Yngson was shot by a local government official in Negros Occidental last July 25 but survived.

The article claimed that Yngson’s case “is the first attack on a media man after several years,” then added that the Philippines was only second to Iraq as the most dangerous place for journalists, according to international media watchdogs Reporters Without Borders and the International Press Institute.

The attack on Yngson, however, comes from a long line of attacks against and killings of journalists since 1986, which worsened during the Arroyo administration.

This year alone, there have been five journalists murdered, one of whom was likely killed for his work as a journalist. Most known among the several attacks against journalists this year is the April 19 shooting of Philippine Daily Inquirer correspondent Delfin Mallari Jr. in Lucena City, Quezon.

There have been at least 20 reported cases of work-related attacks against journalists this year, including death threats, legal charges, arrest, imprisonment, and physical assault. Last year, six media practitioners were killed in the line of duty, according to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.

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