Fact check: Media actually also covered Swedish envoy's meeting with Marcos Jr.
MANILA, Philippines — A Facebook user claimed that "mainstream media" did not equally cover Swedish Ambassador Annika Thunborg's meeting with president-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. compared with a similar meeting with outgoing Vice President Leni Robredo.
CLAIM: On June 14, netizen Georgina Here posted a photo on Facebook a compilation of social media posts from Inquirer.net, GMA News, ABS-CBN News, Manila Bulletin and The STAR on Robredo's meeting with Thunborg.
The compilation also included screengrabs of posts from Manila Bulletin and GMA News, and a livestream link from ABS-CBN.The social media user then raised doubts on the "type of reporting" done by mainstream media, claiming Robredo got more coverage for meeting with the Swedish envoy.
RATING: This is false.
FACTS:
What the post says
In the compilation, social media posts of Robredo's meeting with the Swedish envoy — details and photos of which were initially shared by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and reposted by media outlets — were juxtaposed with a single post from Marcos Jr.'s verified Facebook page that showed a picture of him shaking Thunborg's hand.
Georgina also shared another compilation of social media posts from Manila Bulletin and GMA News' coverage of Marcos Jr.'s meeting with several diplomats.
"If this is the type of reporting the mainstream media will do, then it stands to reason that they will be losing the trust of the Filipino people. Your credibility is diminishing! Right? GMA News ABS-CBN News INQUIRER.net MANILA BULLETIN Philstar.com," she wrote.
Her post indicates that media outlets gave more air time to the meeting between Robredo and Thunborg, compared with Marcos Jr.'s courtesy call.
Screengrab by Philstar.com, June 20
The media also had not been informed whether Thunborg set a separate courtesy call with Vice President-elect Sara Duterte, and members of the press have no control over a diplomat's schedule.
What the post left out
A cursory Google search shows that the media did actually cover Marcos Jr.'s meeting with Ambassador Thunborg and what they talked about.
Inquirer.net came out with a story on June 10 about Thunborg's meeting with the president-elect with whom she discussed the "war on drugs" and other topics during her courtesy call at the Marcos campaign headquarters in Mandaluyong.
GMA News, Manila Bulletin, ABS-CBN and The STAR publication Pang-Masa had similar stories as well, focusing on Thunborg's meeting with Marcos Jr.
On 3:56 pm of June 10, ABS-CBN reporter Ina Reformina tweeted about Thunborg's courtesy call on the president-elect, citing his media bureau.
While it is true the outlets reposted content from the Office of the Vice President on their respective Facebook pages, the media was not remiss in informing the public about the meeting of the Swedish ambassador and president-elect.
Essential context
The Digital News Report (DNR) 2022 of the Reuters Institute showed that trust in news has risen among Filipinos, with 37% of the proportion saying they "can trust most news most of the time" amid the rise in COVID-19 cases during the time they were interviewed.
DNR 2022, however, also discovered that news avoidance — limiting one's exposure to the news — was higher in the country, with 47% often turning away from the news. The number can go as high as 75% if the proportion of Filipinos who occasionally avoid the news is considered.
Over 2,000 Filipinos were polled among more than 93,400 people across six continents from Jan. 18 to Feb. 2 for the report.
A section of the report showed that Facebook remains the most widely-used social platform in the consumption of online news (74% for news weekly), but TikTok had the biggest increase, with 15% of Filipinos relying on the platform for news, up from the mere 2% back in 2020.
Why it matters
Although the post only has 46 shares and 75 reactions since it was created nearly a week ago, it landed on Philstar.com's monitoring on social media. A quick glance at the page shows that it has been posting content critical of Robredo, the losing candidate in the May elections.
Philstar.com, the digital company under the STAR Group of Publications whose flagship print publication is The STAR, was among the outlets tagged by Georgina.
We fact-checked this as this was also not the first time that "mainstream" media has been accused of not covering the activities of Marcos Jr. — Reviewed by Franco Luna
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This story is supported by the Philippine Fact-check Incubator, an Internews initiative to build the fact-checking capacity of news organizations in the Philippines and encourage participation in global fact-checking efforts.
Philstar.com is also a founding partner of Tsek.ph, a collaborative fact-checking project for the 2022 Philippines’ elections and an initiative of academe, civil society groups and media to counter disinformation and provide the public with verified information.
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