Media icons say consumers revert to traditional press

CEBU, Philippines — In the advent of fake news on social media, Philippine Star Editor-in-Chief Ana Marie Pamintuan and News5 Digital Editor-at-Large Manuel Mogato said that people are slowly going back to traditional media.

Pamintuan said during "The News in Challenging Times" forum that, even if the media will change and news consumption pattern may change, people still want information that is accurate and reliable.

"People are realizing that the best choice of that kind of information is still legacy media because we are accountable," said Pamintuan during the forum which was attended by mass communication and journalism students from the different universities in Cebu.

She said that print readership went down or went flat but this should not be happening because our population is getting bigger and circulation has been disastrous for many newspapers.

"The trend now and good news for us, there is a backlash of fake news in the social media. People now are going back to legacy media, both the print and digital edition for the source of news," she said.

She added that journalism has not changed.

"Ganon pa rin ang hinahanap ng mga tao na reliable, accurate, impartial and accountable tayo to our readers," she said.

She added that the media platform is evolving but the requirement for good journalism is still there and the only way we survive is to provide good journalism.

"What are changing are the skills needed. Journalism is not dying. What is evolving is the platform and all the teaching in your journalism school and all the requirement for good journalism tuloy tuloy pa rin yon. There are still jobs available for you in all these evolving media platforms. May pag-asa ang profession ninyo," Pamintuan told the students.

Mogato, for his part, said that the trust of media is the journalism principle of accuracy, fairness and impartiality.

"You will never go wrong if you practice this basic journalism principle. People will trust us," Mogato said.

He added that the social media is creating a lot of divisiveness by spreading fake news, a reason why people are now going back slowly to traditional media.

"So there is still hope for us people in the media that people are going back to traditional media to get legitimate information," Mogato added.

The FREEMAN has organized the forum – whose sponsors included Cebu Energy/Global Business Power/Toledo Power, Raddison Blu Cebu, Diamond Suites Cebu and the Chocolate Chamber – as part of the weeklong celebration of the Cebu Press Freedom Week. — GAN (FREEMAN)