The De La Salle University – Dasmariñas (DLSU-D) Communication and Journalism Department (CJD) professors believed that the bias accusations of presidential aspirant Bongbong Marcos against journalist Jessica Soho is not true.
DLSU-D CJD professor and Board of Management in Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) Marco Polo explained that journalists themselves have the ethical responsibility in performing their duty and one of those is avoiding bias.
"When we talk about bias, the most common understanding of people is that you have prejudice, or you favor one over the other, and people think it is unfair and journalists have this challenge in the performance of their duty to ensure that they are truthful and fair," Polo said.
Polo also emphasized that Soho is just doing her job as a journalist for the public and the accusation of Marcos Jr. is unfounded.
"The accusation against her that she is biased against Mr. Marcos and that she is anti-Marcos is unfounded because in the past occasions, she has been circumspect and fair in providing an opportunity for the members of the Marcos family – for their voices to be heard," Polo explained.
Meanwhile, fellow CJD professor and Good News Pilipinas Content Producer Angie Balibay stated that journalists are humans which have innate bias but they curtail it in the practice.
Balibay also explained that Soho does not deserve to be tagged as a “biased” journalist by Marcos Jr.
"Maybe he’s (Bongbong Marcos) using his own lens and that in itself is not a credible measure or judgment of whether a journalist is doing her job. If you would accuse or say that a journalist is biased,on a knee jerk, we would say, of course, the journalist is biased for the truth," Balibay expressed.
Dealing with bias accusations
After declining the invitation for The Jessica Soho 2022 Presidential Interviews, Bongbong Marcos stated that Jessica Soho is biased against the Marcoses in an interview.
"Pinagba-basehan ko lang 'yung karanasan ko, ‘yung mga experience ko in the last few years, hindi lang ako, pati na yung kapatid ko, pati na basta’t may kinalaman sa [mga] Marcos, talagang may bias talaga, ang pakiramdam ko," Marcos Jr. said.
(Translation: This is based on my experiences in the last few years, not only I, but also my siblings, and others who are associated with the Marcoses. I feel that there’s really a bias.)
However, CJD professors said that journalists should be firm in doing their job, and deal with biased accusations by focusing on their duty to continue serving the public with truthful information.
"As long as they are doing their job to ensure that they’re doing it in a truthful, balanced, fair manner, they will be able to stand for the truth.’’ Polo added.
Moreover, Balibay stated that journalists should not take the accusations personally and just move on.
"You just move on towards your goal, which is to continue doing your job (of) truth telling and telling your story to your audience. Now it’s a different thing if the charges are sent to court, then you will have to face that," Balibay added.
Advice for journalism students
Despite the bias accusations in journalism, DLSU-D CJD professors encouraged students to continue pursuing the said profession.
"I urge you to continue to become a journalist because we need journalists. If no one is going to speak for people to write the truth, who is going to do that?. It may not sit well with everyone, it may not be what they think is real but the journalist’s job is to mirror what is going on in the world, to report what is going on, to make sure that the truth is made known to the public," Polo said.
Balibay said that the pandemic will also not be a hindrance to learn about journalism because students can learn the ropes of journalism online.
"When the pandemic is over, then you get into face-to-face conferences or seminars with journalists and people [who] will give you help with the tools you can use to do your fact checking and how to work with the internet," Balibay added.
Balibay further explained that students should listen to their teachers because they are giving them proper guidance and they are pushing them beyond their comfort zones to help them learn the practice better.
By Rechilda Estores
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