Column: Bias in surveys, etc.

A manufactured crisis; the conventions of opinion writing; coping mechanisms for survey laggards. Published on January 12, 2010.

Yesterday’s editorial piqued my curiosity. “Not least, the history of the Court itself belies [Rep. Matias] Defensor’s contention that the office of Chief Justice had never been vacant, not even for a day.” Good thing the Supreme Court maintains one of the better government websites.

On sc.judiciary.gov.ph, we can find a list of the country’s chief justices, going all the way back to Cayetano Arellano. There are a few mistakes on the list that even a non-lawyer can spot and which can easily be remedied, such as Manuel Moran’s date of retirement (May 29, 1951, not 1966) or the order of Roberto Concepcion’s successors (Querube Makalintal came before Fred Ruiz Castro). But in it too, Defensor can find the perfect rebuttal to his arguments.

Column: The curse of singing journalists, atbp.

Today’s column. Considering my many friends in the ABS-CBN newsroom, not exactly easy to write. But as one of them pledged, All is fair indeed in love and war. Published on January 5, 2010.

I CAN’T GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD, RUNS ONE typical comment in one of the many available YouTube versions. Watching ABS-CBN’s “Ako ang Simula” music video, we can easily see why. It is catchy, powerful, unforgettable. It is also wrong.

It blurs, in the name of good citizenship, the already heavily smudged line between journalism and entertainment.

Obama sightings

A couple of friends asked, so here goes nothing. The best I could manage, at around 10:26 pm on Friday, December 18, was this scruffy shot.  

Fortunately, about 40 minutes earlier, the first time Barack Obama used the back of the press conference room at the Bella Center in Copenhagen as emergency exit, an AP photog was doing his job.