A critical essay on "the political affiliations and biases of the philippine news media”

“ The Political Affiliations and Biases of the Philippine News Media” talks about the biases of the Philippine News Media. The author states that news networks can have their own biases towards issues in the country. However, the problem stated in this research paper was that some news networks abuse their ability to have their own biases towards certain political parties when it is election season or when a new law is about to be passed. In order to show that this problem is significant, the author seeks to answer three questions about how politics is reported by Philippine news media, how possible political biases are presented by Philippine media and how people’s perspectives on political issues are influenced by Philippine media. In relation to this, it talks about how these biases affect the voters and the rest of the country when it comes to determining which issues are more important.

Furthermore, is says that Philippine news media frames other political parties that their network is against or puts more emphasis on other news so that people would think of those issues more rather than the more important ones about politics. Finally, it talks about how news networks somehow change the stories of their reports to change the perspective of its viewers of the political parties they support or go against.

Although the author was able to present his arguments, these arguments are yet to be evaluated because his conclusions lacked premises and there are still questions to be asked about to further prove his points. Therefore, these arguments tend to sound more like mere assumptions and exposes the bias of the author even more. The author of the informative research paper should further prove his arguments on how politics is reported by the Philippine media and how possible political biases are presented by the Philippine media.

First, the paper talked about how politics is reported by the Philippine media. Essentially, it was mentioned that the media should be a caution for states to not abuse their power since they are the ones reporting what the government does. In the Philippines, it is stated in the Constitution that the media should not have any limits when it comes to their reports. In relation to this, the author said that having biases is not entirely a negative thing for reporting since it gives space for discussion and different perceptions about a certain issue. However, the author argues that this practice backfires because some news networks overstep with their reporting. His premise for this is that the media is the basis of Filipinos in determining what issues are important. His argument could be favorable, but it sounds like more of a mere assumption because there are questions yet to be answered about it. The premise for his argument does not explicitly state why the media determines what issues are important for Filipinos. Because of this, it may seem like all Filipinos rely on the media to tell them what issues are important even if most Filipinos can probably say for themselves what is important and what is not. Moreover, this makes Filipinos look like they are gullible and that they depend on the media too much. The author could have made his argument better by explaining more thoroughly why and how the media shows Filipinos which issues to focus more on. Also, he could have given certain instances about this practice to clearly explain this phenomenon and show that the media really has been abusing their own biases towards certain issues.

Another aspect of the biases of Philippine media that the paper talked was how certain news networks display their political biases in favor of or against some political parties. For instance, it talked about how the Lopez family had control over ABS-CBN since former President Cory Aquino gave the control to them after the EDSA Revolution in 1986. The author also accuses ABS-CBN for changing the content of their reports to create scandals about Gloria Arroyo and her husband. Also, it is stated that different news organizations have different headlines about the Priority Development Assistance Fund scandal. An example would be that the Philippine Daily Inquirer framed the articles in a more negative way compared to the Manila Bulletin and the Philippine Star. It is good that the author was able to present an example to support his claim. However, these examples only show one side of the issues he discussed.