Investigative Documentaries: A program with a lot of math

If one were to factor in all elements that make a television program succeed, "Investigative Documentaries" (ID) would not.

It is full of numbers, which a lot of TV viewers are not too keen on analysing. It airs at 8 in the evening, when soaps reign supreme. It tackles government policies, systems, and processes, which many find too unwieldy.

Yet the program, hosted by veteran journalist Malou Mangahas, has found a core group of supporters, making it one of the highest-ranking programs on GNTV, the country’s number 1 news channel.

This year, it won the St. Hildegarde Award for Outstanding Achievement in Broadcast Media, an honor given by St. Scholastica’s College. Just last month,  the Catholic Mass Media Awards named it Best Public Service Program. This was followed by the Department of Health Media Awards’ Health Media Recognition for its episode on nutrition just last month.

To top it all off, Metrobank Foundation named ID program host Mangahas as one of this year’s Journalists of the Year.

“ID was born nearly three years ago on a few modest goals. We wanted to produce a program that would tackle with reason, candor, and solid research -- rather than shock or scare or dazzle -- issues and events with large public interest and impact; enrich and add value to the public discourse by offering data on the backward and forward links of our stories as a people; and help locate the role of Filipino citizens, even as we firmly hold public officials and agencies accountable, in addressing problems and rolling out solutions,” says Mangahas.

And while it has been a joke that students take up mass communication to avoid mathematics, doing the math and analyzing government’s numbers have become the core competency of the ID staff.

”Just as important, we had wished, too, that as the ID staff constantly try to access information and documents from government agencies for our stories, we could also help inform our viewers about how they can assert and practise their right to know and secure information they need, want, and are entitled in law to get, because these involve public welfare and the use of public funds,” says Mangahas.

The past three years, ID has tackled, at length, issues that bring to light the impact of government policies and programs. It has devoted numerous episodes on assessing the performance of political clans, corruption in infrastructure projects, and neglected social concerns.


Naturally, the program’s Facebook page has become a watering hole of sorts for those with opinion on politics and governance. ID’s Facebook page has 138,000 supporters, a feat for a serious program with loads of math.  


Investigative Documentaries airs at 8:00 PM every Thursday night on GMA News TV. Follow the program on Facebook and Twitter:

https://www.facebook.com/investigativedocumentaries
http://twitter.com/ID_NEWSTV