Philippine President Benigno Aquino III on
Monday slammed the media for inaccurate and negative news reports, saying that
these affected the image of the country before the global community.
Speaking
at the Philippine Press Institute’s 16th national press forum and annual
membership meeting at Trader’s Hotel in Pasay City, the President called on the
media to be balanced and fair in reporting events.
Aquino
also complained about the media’s
penchant for reporting on the travel
advisories issued by countries against the Philippines.
Among
the recent reports which he found inaccurate included a report that came out
in the
Philippine Daily Inquirer on the recent visit of the Emir of Qatar to
Manila.
“The
(visit of the Emir) was reported in the article but the headline ‘Qatar’s Emir
cuts short state visit’ seemed to plant some doubt. And when you read the
article, the message seemed to say ‘that the President and the Emir did not
meet, but their bilateral meeting was successful,”’ said the President who did
not name the Inquirer, however.
But
following his speech, the President
dropped by the Palace press room to explain why he had criticised the
Inquirer news report dated April 10.
He
noted that it included a sentence that said the Emir’s visit “was supposed to
include a meeting with President Aquino and key Cabinet members” when in the
next paragraph, the story reported on
the issues taken up at the bilateral meeting between the President and the
Emir.
Date
reported on Twitter
Speaking
to the reporters, Aquino also pointed to another news item that first came out
on the social networking site Twitter, where he was allegedly spotted in
Greenhills with a date on a weekday in
March.
Aquino
said he was in the Palace from 10am to 4pm that day attending a meeting of the
National Economic and Development Authority where many issues were tackled.
Not
angry
The
President lamented that the media did not even bother to check the accuracy of
the report.
“If you
don’t believe me, you could have looked and seen, is the convoy present? Are
the other Cabinet secretaries’ vehicles still there, etc? How could that
happen?” he said. “That’s what we’re asking. It’s not impossible to determine
where my location was.”
The
President, however, made it clear that he was not angry at the Palace press
corps.
But he
said the media should check the facts, get the other side of a story and be
fair.
To
illustrate his point, Aquino said: “Parang kung idedescribe mo may pimple ako o
iyong buong mundo ko yung pimple ko na lang. Imbes na di ba, baka pwedeng
sabihin baka maganda ang mata ko, baka maganda yung ilong ko or something.
Parang sa atin parati doon tayo sa pimple lang. Kung minsan nakakatawa, kung
minsan nakakairita.” [It’s as if you describe me as having a pimple and my
world revolved around that pimple. Instead, maybe you can say that I have
beautiful eyes, or I have a beautiful nose or something. For us, it’s always
only the pimple. Sometimes it’s funny but sometimes it’s irritating.]
Last
good story
Aquino
then cited good stories that needed to be reported like the good agriculture
production in the country.
At one
point, the Chief Executive asked the
reporters when they last reported a positive story.
The
President also took note of crime news reporting where the media tended to
report on crimes but would not highlight it when the criminals were convicted
and jailed.
He
cited as an example the recent conviction by a regional trial court of
carjacking gang leader Raymond Dominguez.
Corner
of page
“When
it came to the time the guy was arrested, the guy was convicted, (the news
item) was printed in the corner or lower side (of a page) and was not related
to the story that carnapping incidents had gone down,” he said.
He said
had these stories been highlighted, maybe the people and law enforcers would be
even more encouraged to fight crime because “their efforts were recognised.”'
“That’s
the whole point of the speech,” Aquino concluded.
Christine
O. AvendaƱo
Philippine
Daily Inquirer
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