Viral posts across social media are claiming that retired UP Political Science Professor Clarita Carlos criticized ABS-CBN Corp. for what she supposedly claimed was their “biased” coverage of presidential candidates, which the posts say skews clearly towards one candidate while being disproportionately negative towards the others.
CLAIM: ABS-CBN news anchor Tony Velasquez was supposedly criticized on his own show after he purportedly claimed that Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI) was a biased media outlet.
RATING: This is misleading.
FACTS: The conversation did go down that direction, but many of the quotes included in the post were made up.
What the post said
In a now-viral post, one Rha Yan claimed on Facebook that Velasquez categorically claimed that SMNI was a “biased” network. He supposedly went on to compare ABS-CBN to the outlet, saying, “unlike us, we do not endorse anyone.”
Yan went on to claim that in response, Carlos castigated the news anchor, saying, “the people aren’t stupid.”
What is left out
Carlos was a panelist at the SMNI Presidential Debates. A cursory watch of the actual interview aired over ABS-CBN TeleRadyo’s “On the Spot” shows that neither Carlos nor Velasquez said such things.
Velasquez’s question was not that SMNI was biased. He asked the professor, “If the owner of the outlet has endorsed a candidate, how is that going to affect the debate?”
He did make the comparison, but he did not use the word biased. “We as a network, we do not openly endorse any candidate,” he said.
Carlos did criticize the network, but not for the quality of its content. She also never said that “every network has a candidate they endorse.”
“I’ve been content analyzing you guys, and I count the number of minutes, micro-seconds, that you indulge in XYZ candidates. So let’s not feign ignorance,” she said in Filipino. This was the only quote in the post that was actually said.
Read the full story on Philstar.com.
