How to air a fake news?

Alleged Rape?

            I stumbled upon a video clip of a rape case and I thought it was a simple rape case but when I played the video, it was stated that a woman allegedly raped her boyfriend twelve times. This was posted on June 27, 2014 by ABS CBN and was aired on Bandila.

           First things first, the way the news anchor Karen Davila introduced the news.

She said: “Kumakalat ngayon sa social media ang larawan ng isang babae na taga-Bontoc, Mountain Province umano. Sabi sa post, ilang beses pwinersa ng babae ang boyfriend na makipagsex sa kanya.”

            The news was on Bandila and the program airs late at night but nevertheless, the word sex seems inappropriate on Philippine TV given the contemporary sensitivity of Filipinos.

            Another thing is the news item itself. It was aired even though the news was a complete hokum. It was only spread online by some people and labeled an Igorot woman raped her boyfriend. Naturally, the elders of the community and the mayor of the area reacted. The elders were even interviewed and they said they teach Igorot women to be modest and not mingle with boys so this particular story is actually very offensive to them.

            To avoid these kinds of presumptions, the anchor could have already said in the introduction that the story is not true before going into detailed reporting and offend some people.

2012-69318     (2)

(Editor's note: The actual canned report is properly contextualized. However, as the blogger pointed out, the lead-in or intro of the report would have been better if the context was already clear -- that it was a fake news.)