Estelle Marie M. Ladrido, Magandang Gabi Bayan: Nation, Journalism Discourse, and Television News in the Philippines, Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2017. 288 pp.

Excerpt: Estelle Marie M. Ladrido’s Magandang Gabi Bayan offers a critical interrogation of the deep ties between news and nation in the Philippine context, foregrounding how television journalism functions as both a technology of power and a site of struggle. The book begins with the premise that news does not merely report on the nation but actively constructs and sustains a discourse of nationhood. Ladrido questions the naturalized belief in the centrality of news to national life, instead probing how such centrality is produced and maintained through journalistic practices, professional norms, and the mediacentric role of the press. By treating news production as a field of power relations, she reveals how journalists negotiate authority and credibility within institutional, political, and cultural constraints that shape and reshape their discourse.