Spin For Sale

That’s the title of a post-graduate study in progress on one of the 2010 elections stickier problems: radio block time commentators. Are they legitimate voices in the national dialogue? Or broadcast gunslingers for hire?

This is  a country  confronted by  a tension-filled election.  Funded by faceless patrons, blocktimers  raise threat  levels, cautions Isolde Amante, “Spin” author.  Amante is managing editor of the regional Sun Star daily. At  Ateneo University, she probed further on findings compiled by the  Center for Media Freedom  and Responsibility.

CMFR’  “The Danger of  Impunity”  analyzed  murders of  journalists. It  found  that in a five year period, “21 of 25 victims block timers” in the provinces were block timers. Block timing is a  major fund generator for provincial  stations, CMFR’s Melinda de Jesus cautioned in  2008.  “This is  an emerging problem for  Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP),”.

Radio reaches nine out of ten  Filipinos. Despite the surge in television audiences and Internet,  the number of  AM radio stations bolted from 350 in 1998  to 382 in 2007. And radio’s  reach attracts block timers – and  their killers.

“Block timers are not journalists”,. Sun-Star noted  earlier. “They’re walk in customers”. Institutions or individuals buy airtime at radio stations overseen shakily by the  National Telecommunications  Commission  No questions are asked. They broadcast news and comment, block timers claim. Character assassination or praise  for a price., critics counter.”.

“They’re  hold-uppers on the air”, Rep. Antonio Cuenco  fumed  Five block time commentators  badgered Cuenco  and other Visayan-speaking legislators for cash and airfares. When refused, they  slammed the solons  on the air.

The  Philippines has no monopoly on  block time extortion, Amante wrote.  In Colombia , the Center for International Media Assistance dubs this as “two-way blackmail”. Officials scupper advertising contracts for critical  media. . In reprisal,  the unscrupulous “threaten to destroy,  if they don’t advertise.”

Airrtime on evening newscasts, in  China ,  is peddled to officials who’d  “ boost their profiles in the Communist Party,” reports Forbes Asia ( July 21, 2008 ).  Some broadcasters “basically trade in their political capital for commercial gain.”

State ownership restricts  news and political commentary in Thailand., says Dr. Ubonrat Siriyuvasak in KAS Democracy Report 2008.  “Saturating  airwaves with one-way communication turns  state-controlled media into propaganda machines.

Capitol is Cebu province’s largest block timer.  Contracts for 2009 reveal airtime fees alone, this year, may top P4.86 million. “That’s enough to enough to run the Province’s largest district hospital for nearly four months,” Amante points out...  

The  broadcasts disseminate information about programs to help  people,  insists Vice Gov. Gregorio Sanchez Jr.  “That really helps.” It  certainly does. Nearly half of what  Capitol  spends monthly for  airtime ( P200,000) goes to three. Bantay Radyo  AM stations —  two in Cebu , one in Oriental Negros. Owner?: Vice Gov. Sanchez.

Political commentaries chewed up more than half (55.5 percent) of all block time hours. Health topics accounted for 8 percent, Five incumbent elective officials and four ex-officials are spread-eagled, as block timers, in eight of Cebu’s  13  AM radio stations.

And there’s little by way of training block timers in professional  standards: objectivity, balance, fairness – as code of ethics provides. “Most block timers operate in a moral wasteland where facts are few and comments bear a price tag,” notes “Pocketbook Muscle and Journalists”.

Block timers are not required, by law or the  Broadcast Code to reveal funding sources. “For all their pervasiveness, little is known about individuals or organizations that pay for them or challenges of regulating them… Without their knowledge or consent, taxpayers pay for some of these commentaries,” Amante notes. Block time enable incumbents campaign months ahead of the elections.

Nearly all managers admit unease over “hired guns” firing in their stations. KBP’s Broadcast Code requires “accreditation”  Member-stations now: require  block timers  to  “commit” themselves to abide by the Code of the KBP Standards Authority. No one claims these measures instilled ethical curbs against foul language, personal attacks and unfair commentaries.

KBP has not issued a policy to curb political  block time.  “This runs counter to the Constitution“ which prohibits prior restraint, KBP’s general counsel said. The body “must protect freedom of expression, press and speech.”

That is good law.  It factors in a stinging Supreme Court reprimand of KBP. The Court, in 2008, struck down, as prior restraint, a National Telecommunications Commission  threat to padlock radio stations, if they aired  the “Garci tapes”  KBP “inexplicably” folded it’s arms in “this battle for freedom and of the press”, the Court noted. “The silence on the sidelines…is too deafening to be subject to misinterpretation.”

Elections 2010 are too near for policy discussions on relevance, say of Britain or the US in public service broadcasting.  “In Southeast Asia, Thailand ’s experience suggests these do not necessarily guarantee more democratic and more diverse broadcasting.”

Left to their own devices, radio stations adopt ad hoc policies concerning block timers,” Amante notes. “Several manage to stay on the air simply by flitting from one station to another” where they peddle, what else?  “Spin for Sale ”.   http://bit.ly/EVvjE