Group: Cebu dailies cover mostly local polls

AS EXPECTED, Cebu’s English language papers covered the developments in the local elections, an initial assessment from media watchdog Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) reported.

Based on CMFR’s “Media Coverage of the 2010 elections,” newspaper outfits Sun.Star Cebu, Cebu Daily News, and The Freeman focused on the local rather than the national elections, although the local races are set to start only on March 26.

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“Although the presidential elections did receive attention, these still came in second in terms of number of reports. Some reports were also on the presidential, vice presidential, senatorial, and party-list elections, but in general these reports were fewer and far between compared to those on Cebu’s local elections,” CMFR said in a statement.

Local election reports totaled 161, where “elections in general” was covered in 145 reports and the presidential elections in 92 reports. Senatorial, vice-presidential and party-list elections coverage followed respectively.

Twenty-eight reports, meanwhile, are classified as “Local (non-Cebu)” or political developments in other areas with national interest (i.e. Pampanga, Maguindanao).

“Significantly, the Cebu press also reported on local elections in other provinces, indicating an understandable preferential bias for the proximate and the more immediately relevant,” the group added.

Sun.Star led the coverage of Cebu politics with 68 reports, followed by The Freeman with 56, and Cebu Daily News with 37. The 27-year-old paper also topped the list in presidential, party-list and elections in general stories.

As to the number of news reports, The Freeman had the most number of election-related reports (145), followed by Sun.Star (144) and Cebu
Daily News (100).

In relation, however, to their respective news holes, Cebu Daily News led with 20 percent election-related reports, followed by Sun.Star and The Freeman with 19 percent each.

Most of the election-related reports are found in the inside pages and the stories are usually found in the main news section. Others were distributed in sections like Business, Community, and Nation.

As to the themes covered, the campaign trail tops the list with 132 reports, followed Commission on Elections (Comelec)-related issues (110), development/policy issues that gave emphasis on candidates’ platforms (93).

And as usual, mudslinging, cock-fight or accusations-counter-accusations among candidates also caught newspapers’ attention with 71 reports. This was followed by “Personality/Track Record” with 63 reports.

The least covered issues were “The Arroyo factor” and “Complaints on irregularities” with only 23 reports each.

Policy issues in order of importance are as follows: education (20), the economy (18), followed by corruption (14) and governance (9). Others include health or cheaper medicines (8), infrastructure/facilities (8), peace and order (7), poverty (6), the environment (6), anti-illegal drugs (3), and senior citizens’ concerns (3).

As to news subjects, Comelec leads the pack with 94, followed by Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña (62).

Among the candidates for president, Manny Villar of Nacionalista Party (58) and Noynoy Aquino of the Liberal Party (56) were the most frequently reported news subjects, followed by Gilbert Teodoro of Lakas-Kampi (35).

Osmeña’s challenger in the third congressional district of Cebu City, Jonathan “Atan” Guardo also figured in 35 reports.

Comelec, Osmeña, and police are the top three most quoted sources of news while incumbents in the local races had the chance to air their side than rivals.

Sun.Star is most neutral

The CMFR monitoring also found the reports to be generally neutral at 86 percent, or equivalent to 333 out of 389 election-related reports filed during the monitoring period.

“Sun.Star Cebu had the most number of neutral reports both numerically (135 neutral articles) and proportionally (94 percent), followed by Cebu Daily News (83 neutral articles, 83 percent), and The Freeman (115 neutral articles, 79 percent). Most of the reports had adequate background at 86 percent,” CMFR said.

Positive slants outnumbered the negative slants by almost a half, 40 to 22. Aquino received the most number with seven, followed by Villar with six and four for Osmeña.

Five negative slants were against Villar, three each against the Comelec and Guardo, and two each against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Osmeña.

But the CMFR said slant does not equate “manifest or deliberate bias” towards a subject or subjects.

“In most of the election-related reports that were coded as positively or negatively slanted, the latent content or the more subtle results of many different factors in the reports were considered – such as missing to get the side of a news subject on a major issue or accusation that requires his or her reply or rebuttal, and lack of adequate background which can otherwise provide proper context to the story,” it said.

CMFR partnered with the Cebu Citizens Press Council (CCPC) for the project. The journalist watchdog has been monitoring the coverage of the Philippine elections since 1992.

Aside from Cebu newspapers, the CMFR also released Friday the results of its news monitoring on broadcast networks and Manila-based publications. (Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)