But what distressed me even more was the reaction from one of my online followers to my lament of how Nicolas Maduro, the beleaguered Venezuelan president, could allow his people to suffer just to keep himself in power. He wrote: “Wala tayo sa Venezuela (We are not in Venezuela), we don’t know what’s really going on there. Can we trust the mainstream media? Have we forgotten what they did to Marcos, Ghadafi, what they’re doing to Duterte right now?”
This is the same line of argument that some people have taken with regard to the atrocities suffered by the Rohingya, and the plight of the Syrian refugees. I am greatly depressed that these realities are doubted by otherwise rational people who become skeptical and refuse to commiserate with those who suffer simply because they no longer trust mainstream media. And what fuels this distrust, and its deadly impact not only on the credibility of media, but also on the creation of a community of sympathy with those who are victimized by oppressive regimes, is the palpable political resentment of people who are loyal to President Duterte who seethe with rage at what they perceive as the unfair way he is being treated by a very partisan and biased press.
The credibility of media is now further strained by the undeniable bias that the press unabashedly exhibits in its reportage on the Philippine elections. A simple content analysis of the election-related news being reported by media in all platforms, but particularly in their online sites, reveals an obvious partisan flavor, with the bias slanted towards the political opposition and against the administration. The opposition senatorial slate gets a relatively favorable, if not neutral, coverage, even as the administration candidates are often imaged negatively and less favorably. What is often highlighted on the opposition side are their criticisms of government. There is even very little to no attempt to fact-check the claims of the opposition candidates. Meanwhile, the coverage of the administration candidates focuses heavily on their miscues, misstatements and oddities, instead of their platforms and the substance of their legislative programs. The media makes it appear that the members of the administration Senate slate are all error and flaw, with nothing to offer.
Take the case of Imee Marcos, a candidate that the media has obviously identified as one to be taken down with incessant vigor. There is so much focus on the controversy about her academic credentials, and nary a reportage on what she offers, which to an objective observer is actually a lot.
And what sparks further outrage is the manner by which mainstream media deploy troll-styled posts by milking the negatives of the administration slate, shown for example in their concerted effort to post memes about Bato dela Rosa’s miscues, and create elaborate infomercials masquerading as fact checks about Imee Marcos’ alleged lying about her diplomas. In the face of the many instances that candidates on the administration slate discuss their policy proposals and legislative agenda, what media chooses to highlight is the fact that Sen. Koko Pimentel does not mind sharing a stage with Imee Marcos. This, while they obviously give space to Grace Poe’s campaign press releases about things she plans to legislate when she gets reelected.
People are no longer the empty sponges that media used to fill with clear water. Citizens can now discern when they are being filled with poisoned narratives. People are no longer the passive recipient of anything that media churns. People have venues to express themselves, and they have other sources of competing narratives.
They saw the relative absence of media coverage when lawyer Glenn Chong was exposing in detail, and with documented evidence, the electoral fraud that marred the 2016 elections, and they were outraged. They were looking for the media when Richard Santillan, Chong’s assistant, was brutally killed by police operatives. Finding none, they begin to see a pattern.
The people see the imbalance in the treatment by media of Imee Marcos’ alleged lies, even as they allow Florin Hilbay to get away with his false representation of his participation in the case filed by the Philippines against China on the West Philippine Sea, something which Marites Vitug, their professional colleague, has exposed.
Media performs a critical function in our democracy. They are supposed to inform people by providing them objective, fair and honest news that is unbiased and unblemished by any partisan or ideological leanings. They are the vessels upon which responsible and critical citizenship is carried and nurtured. It is therefore tragic when people no longer see them as credible. What heightens the tragedy is when people resort to other, equally compromised sources to affirm their own blind biases, by relying on faked, incomplete and distorted alternative narratives.
Bloggers, ordinary netizens, even opinion writers, do not have the burden of neutrality. This burden solely rests on the professional media. Thus, the challenge is greater for media to paint the political landscape in relatively neutral, fairer and more objective strokes.
Otherwise, we will end up with the greater tragedy of people not making informed decisions and choices simply because the media entities that are supposed to help them make those are now consumed by their own biases and partisanship. People end up voting for the undeserving candidates, supporting the wrong causes, and even justifying tyranny either because media gave them biased information, or that they make these choices to spite a partisan media. Either way, media failed to perform its duty to enable rational citizenship.
https://www.manilatimes.net/media-partisanship-and-irrational-citizenship/525464/
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