Cebu Journalism & Journalists -

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The 2009 Maguindanao massacre was known not only as “an unprecedented case of election-related violence.” It was also billed as “an exceptionally brutal attack on the press.” Since the tragedy, CCPC has…

The 2009 Maguindanao massacre was known not only as “an unprecedented case of election-related violence.” It was also billed as “an exceptionally brutal attack on the press.”

Since the tragedy, CCPC has called for a review of journalists’ safety measures, which must include a practical and cautious deployment of reporters at political events, particularly in election hotspots.

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5 min read →

How the Press Stands Media Issues

Let’s not accept disinformation in media as normal

Cebu Journalism & Journalists

December 2, 2019 10:42 pm December 2, 2019

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10 things journalists and audiences can do By Jason A. Baguia [From his talk “Rebuilding a Civilization of Truth” at the 2019 Cebu Press Freedo Week media forum conducted by the Cebu…

10 things journalists and audiences can do

By Jason A. Baguia

[From his talk “Rebuilding a Civilization of Truth” at the 2019 Cebu Press Freedo Week media forum conducted by the Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC) on Sept. 19, 2019 at MBF Cebu Press Center, Lahug, Cebu City. The other speaker, Fr. Ramon D. Echica, San Carlos Major Seminary dean, talked on fake news from the viewpoint of a non-journalist.]

THERE are better things for journalists and their audiences to do than accept that the world has entered a post-truth era or that what comes out of the press is fake by default.

Disinformation becomes normal only when people sit back and do nothing to promote a culture of truth-seeking and truth-telling.

Fake news, spread at internet speeds may have been used by various entities to secure electoral victories around the world in the last half decade, but here are some things we can do to foil machinations that try to give lies the final word.

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12 min read →

Cebu Press Freedom Week CJJ13 Fake News Media Issues News

Fake News: View of a non-journalist

Cebu Journalism & Journalists

November 4, 2019 1:35 pm November 4, 2019

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By Rev. Fr. Ramon D. Echica [Based on his talk at the Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC) media forum during Cebu Press Freedom Week 2019, held at MBF Cebu Press…

By Rev. Fr. Ramon D. Echica

[Based on his talk at the Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC) media forum during Cebu Press Freedom Week 2019, held at MBF Cebu Press Center in Sudlon, Lahug, Cebu City last Sept. 19, 2019. The other speaker at the forum was Jason A. Baguia, a communication teacher-researcher at U.P. Cebu and former Cebu Daily News columnist.]

I am offering my reflections on fake news neither as a cleric nor part of the academe, although I also cannot leave these two hats behind. I like to think that this piece simply comes from a non-journalist, sharing his thoughts to the professional practitioners of journalism.

The landscape of mainstream media is changing rapidly in large part because of social media. Like almost all things, this novel phenomenon has its upsides and downsides. On the former, social media connects people. It is now possible to talk to someone miles away, and free of charge. Indeed, most people believe they are better off with social media than with none.

It is fake news when it is used by political leaders to harass journalists and there is threat of greater harm. Media consumers need to think critically. And journalists can be more honest about their biases and not fail to apologize for their mistakes.

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7 min read →

CJJ13 Media Issues News

Cebu journalists exposed to China media, culture in group visits

Kevin Lagunda

October 6, 2019 6:08 pm October 6, 2019

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It is new only because the invitation comes from China through “private organizations.” For decades a similar grant, but for trips to the United States, was offered by the American…

It is new only because the invitation comes from China through “private organizations.” For decades a similar grant, but for trips to the United States, was offered by the American state department’s Visitor’s Program and accepted by a number of local newspaper and broadcast practitioners. What is strikingly different is that China’s VP offers glimpses into how media under an autocratic government works.

SINCE 2016, a number of mainstream media workers from Cebu have been attending media seminars in China, sponsored purportedly by private institutions through the Chinese consulate office in Cebu.

The latest was organized at the behest of the China International Publishing Group and was held between June 18 and July 19 in Beijing, said Fred Languido who, together with Carlo Lorenciana of “The Freeman” daily newspaper and former “Banat News” editor John Rey Saavedra, who now works with the government-run Philippine News Agency, were among the attendees.

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Cebu Press Freedom Week CJJ13 How the Press Stands Media Issues

Expanded Sotto Law to benefit more media practitioners

Cebu Journalism & Journalists

September 26, 2019 4:43 am September 26, 2019

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The amendment to the Sotto Law, also known as Press Freedom Law, expanding the protection to journalists, has finally been approved. The law now covers not just print journalists but …

The amendment to the Sotto Law, also known as Press Freedom Law, expanding
the protection to journalists, has finally been approved. The law now covers not just print journalists but also practitioners in broadcast, wire service and electronic media.

President Duterte signed Republic Act #1145 last Aug. 30 yet but it was released only Tuesday, Sept. 24. It amends Republic Act #53, the 73-year-old law enacted in 1946.

The Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC), which has helped in the drafting of the House version of the bill (HB# 694), in an en banc meeting last Sept. 19, thanked Rep. Raul V. del Mar as main sponsor who had diligently filed and re-filed the bill in a number of Congresses before it was approved this year.

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10 min read →

CJJ13 Journalism Tools and Trends Media Issues

‘TRANS’ JOURNOS

Kevin Lagunda

September 13, 2019 11:46 am September 13, 2019

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Their work has shifted from newsroom to public information office; from reporter to publicist; from being watchdog of public officials to protector of the officials’ public image. They must spread the ‘good news’ about their employer. Yet, they say, they ‘must still be truthful.’

THE Kingdom and the Power, Gay Talese’s 1969 book about the workings of The New York Times, opens with a pistol-shot of truth about journalists.

The most quoted part runs: “Most journalists are restless voyeurs who see the warts on the world, the imperfections of people and places… Gloom is their game, the spectacle their passion, normalcy their nemesis.”

But what happens when circumstances force a reversal of roles where they, who were once trained to spot official misconduct, become public information officers (government-speak for PR persons) paid to hide those “warts and imperfections?” Continue Reading

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4 min read →

In Memoriam Persons of Interest

Ernesto D. Lariosa (1944-2019)

Kevin Lagunda

August 21, 2019 1:39 pm August 21, 2019

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The multi-awarded fiction writer played key role in using Cebuano-Bisaya to produce Cebu’s first native-language daily. He went into journalism but never left his first passion, literary writing. INFLUENTIAL literary…

The multi-awarded fiction writer played key role in using Cebuano-Bisaya to produce Cebu’s first native-language daily. He went into journalism but never left his first passion, literary writing.

INFLUENTIAL literary writer and Superbalita Cebu columnist Ernesto Degumbis Lariosa died on Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2019, after two weeks of fighting an illness. He was 74.

In 2006, Lariosa won the second prize in the Gawad Komisyon’s poetry contest in Cebuano.

On Aug. 15, 1995, Lariosa wrote in his “Puyra Buyag” column that he accepted the offer of then editor-in-chief Pachico A. Seares to become the language consultant of SuperbalitaCebu, the first daily (seven-days-a-week) newspaper in Cebuano language.

As the second Cebuano-Bisaya writer to serve as language consultant of the paper, Lariosa, a native of San Fernando, Cebu, wrote “Tamdanan,” or guidelines for reporters and editors on spelling and Cebuano grammar. He was instructed to produce “Tamdanan” by Seares, who wanted a guidebook for Superbalita and other journalists writing in Cebuano–Bisaya.

An ‘experiment’

We were experimenting on the use of the native language in a daily newspaper, Seares, who implemented founding publisher Sonny Garcia’s mission for the paper, explained in an anniversary article in SuperB.

“We had no rules on grammar. We just told editors and reporters to be plain, direct and easy to read and understand. Cebuano-Bisaya then was thought to be verbose, windy and deep for most media consumers. The primary purpose was to communicate. The rules would come later.”

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2 min read →

Fake News How the Press Stands Media Issues

STATEMENT

Cebu Journalism & Journalists

July 27, 2019 2:20 pm July 27, 2019

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Cebu Citizens-Press Council Saturday, July 27, 2019 Senator Sotto’s bill doesn’t define ‘false content’ and grants arbitrary power of virtual censorship to government bureaucrats. The Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC) earnestly…

Cebu Citizens-Press Council
Saturday, July 27, 2019

Senator Sotto’s bill doesn’t
define ‘false content’ and grants
arbitrary power of virtual
censorship to government
bureaucrats.

The Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC) earnestly asks Senate President Vicente Sotto III to restudy his Senate Bill #9, filed last July 1, 2019, which seeks to prohibit “publication and proliferation of false content” in the internet.

What CCPC believes are the major defects of the bill:

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13 min read →

CJJ13 Uncategorized

How metro mayors and the governor deal with media

Kevin Lagunda

July 26, 2019 12:45 am July 26, 2019

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Most elected public officials affirm the often-avowed policy of staying “open and transparent” to the public through media. But, as new leaders in their respective local governments, they may modify p.r. method or style and degree of press access, for the LG official to “transmit effectively” his message.

It helps not just the working press but also news consumers to be familiar with how news sources manage relations with media.

Related CJJ article: “Freedom of information: Capitol, Cebu City and Mandaue City regulate access,” Cebu Journalism & Journalists Vol. 11, Year 2016, by Mayette Q. Tabada

THE new mayors of Lapu-Lapu City and Cebu City — Junard “Ahong” Chan and Edgardo Labella — promise they will be available to reporters for interviews. Evading inquiries from journalists is not their brand of politics, they say.

Valdemar Chiong, returnee mayor of Naga City, had a bad experience with a reporter but will still hold press conferences “when necessary.” Talisay City Mayor Samsam Gullas will grant “regular” press-cons. Mandaue City’s Jonas Cortes, another returnee mayor, may shed off his previous habit of rarely talking with medial he had before his new mandate a three-term stint at City Hall and one term in Congress.

The returnee governor, Gwen Garcia, a p.r. believer, is expected to hold press-cons and interviews as often as she sees need for them. Continue Reading

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Cebu Press Freedom Week CJJ13 How the Press Stands Media Issues

Media Self-regulation through Media Literacy: Insights from the Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC)

Mayette Tabada

July 1, 2019 3:57 pm July 1, 2019

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Abstract How does the press regulate itself? Through document research, key informant interviews, and participant observation, the researcher studied how the Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC) promotes media self-regulation (MSR) among…

Abstract

How does the press regulate itself? Through document research, key informant interviews, and participant observation, the researcher studied how the Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC) promotes media self-regulation (MSR) among the Cebu press and media literacy (ML) among citizens and netizens in Cebu, a metropolis in southern Philippines. Led by civil society leaders, the editors-in-chief of Cebu newspapers, and other media leaders, the CCPC conducts MSR through the reactive mechanism of adjudicating complaints about accuracy and fairness or right of reply raised against Cebu’s five local newspapers. Its proactive mechanism involves the promotion of MSR among local journalists and the initiation of ML for citizens and netizens. MSR thrives in a setting that involves four stakeholders: newspapers, media advocacy groups, citizens, and netizens, and it can be enhanced and sustained through ML, which ensures greater participation of citizens and netizens as media watchdogs and defenders of freedom of expression.

Click here for the full text.

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