Telling it like it is

Thanks Steve for an “insanely great” time!

Check out Purple Thumb, Yahoo! Southeast Asia’s election website that will feature the live video stream of the June 30 inauguration of President-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

This idea was a result of a conversation I had with one of the professors in UP Diliman. I wondered out loud if there was any website featuring talents within the University. I also wanted to discover or even rediscover great minds from the scientific, technological and other technical departments in the University.

Thus The Diliman Genius was born.

See how my students in Journ 109 stumbled upon great stories about great Filipino talent right under their noses. Sometimes, you don’t have to go any further to find such stories.

Watch the video interview with Ma. Odea “Deng” Ching.

Aileen Apolo starts her blog with a rant about the scarcity of news about the information technology industry in the Philippines for, hmm, the past months since elections started, or even way before that period.

The shortest reply to her question is this: elections. Most of the media’s attention is focused on this regular exercise of democracy. Also, there are stories that we cannot write because sources decline to make them public, as Migz would put it.

Actually, one of the sources of IT stories today are blogs or the Internet in general. As more techies get connected, it is easier to network with people who are in the know.

Sometimes, I get leads via e-mail from friendly (sometimes unfriendly) sources. But as I stated earlier, the elections has sidetracked IT coverage for some local IT journalists, including myself. I hope to get back on track in the next few weeks when the Commission on Elections finally declares all senatorial winners.

I hope this brief explanation answers some of Aileen’s questions.

A sad news.

CICT chief resigns

June 01, 2007
Updated 12:40:16 (Mla time)
Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — Ramon Sales, chairman of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), has filed an indefinite leave of absence en route to his resignation, an official confirmed with INQUIRER.net Friday.

“He has filed an indefinite leave of absence yesterday but since the President is not in the country, we still don’t know if she would accept it,” Tim Diaz de Rivera, CICT commissioner, said in a telephone
interview.

I just finished a course in PR this summer when I stumbled upon Guy Kawasaki’s blog. He posted an alternative way of doing PR, which is doing it on your own. This is based on an article penned by Glen Kellman. Excerpt:

Just the other day a newspaper’s technology editor told me, “It’s just so hard to meet entrepreneurs these days. You always get their PR people.” A dozen entrepreneurs sprang to mind who would kill to tell their stories. All have agencies. So what I am recommending is not howto manage an agency, but something more radical: not hiring an agency at all.

Hmmmm, that’s a good suggestion. But I think the bottomline here is that people don’t need to hire PR firms to reach out to journalists. Yes, a quick personal email telling us about your idea would likely get us excited. It doesn’t have to be a lengthy article. We just need interesting facts.

Sometimes, I end up writing stories after getting a short email message from some sources. E-mail remains the best way to get our attention.

And don’t forget to be honest (in telling your story) and  be accessible, especially for follow-ups.

But you don’t have to push journalists to write your story. Give it time because you’re not the only one they’re talking to. A good story will find its way in a newspaper or an online news portal if it’s good, interesting, and timely. Be patient.

Finally, here’s something I learned this summer. It’s called the Sunshine principle. Good PR is based on establishing good relationships with the press. Catch them when the Sun is shining. So when storms come, good relationships with the media would spell the difference between getting good and not-so-good stories. Respect journalists, and they’ll respect you in return.

First off, thanks Dr. Stephen Quinn for citing our experience here in the Philippines.

My prof in convergent journalism, Dr Quinn, wrote a story for the Sydney Morning Herald, titled the On the Beat with Citizen Reporters, where he details how technology has changed the way news is delivered, at least for some organizations.In today’s world of wireless communications, blog, and the Internet, nothing still beats good journalism.

Excerpt:

THE power of the mobile phone to capture history has been enthralling news watchers as never before and is changing the way news is reported.

Most of the eyewitness images of the Virginia Tech shootings came from amateurs using camera phones. So, too, did images from major news stories such as the London Tube and the Mumbai rail bombings.

Millions of people have trooped to polling precincts in the Philippines today. As a democratic nation, we had been gifted this right to choose our leaders. And by voting, we hope that our voices will be heard and eventually reflected in the outcome of the elections. For most people, this is the time to let the leaders know if they need to step aside and let others lead.

This perhaps explains the ideal motivations pushing people to vote this time. But do they really want change?

The Philippine elections had always been bloody. As of last count, government has counted more than one hundred deaths related to political rivalries and the elections.

Intense political rivalries, presence of private armies, and insurgency had been blamed for these deaths. Also we’ve read the news of alleged intimidation by the military against left-leaning party list groups labeled as “fronts” of the National People’s Army.

Meanwhile, left-leaning and other party list groups have exposed an organized government effort to fill the party list elections with administration-backed groups — which government denied. The Commission on Elections eventually refused to release the names of nominees of party list groups accredited this year for some legal reasons. But the Supreme Court ruled that there was no reason to hide the names.

We also read the legal battle Alan Peter Cayetano had to endure, as the alleged administration lackey Joselito Cayetano fought for legitimacy.

Today, millions of Filipinos have voted hoping to answer this question: Why do we matter in this election? For politicians and those in power, the answer is simple: status quo. As for the rest, the answer could vary. But I think they all want change. We all want change. But we do have to make the right choice based on what we think could lead to change.

To end, a blog entry in Current talked about people not voting this mid-term elections. I must admit I am one of them. A lot of my friends are not voting either not because they don’t care. The next question is, does it matter if they vote or not?

There’s a word war going on in blogosphere. And the battle has just begun…

David Bullard, a columnist for Sunday Times, has written a controversial piece that compared some bloggers to the “air guitars of journalism.”

Air guitar is about pretending that you can play those fast riffs without the instrument. Air guitar became mainstream maybe after the low-budget movie Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure hit the video stores. But I maybe wrong, heh.

Anyway, I wrote a short entry for Blog Addicts on this issue.

Excerpt:

DAVID BULLARD’S recent column “Name and shame offensive bloggers” on Sunday Times has stirred the blogosphere.

Vincent Maher did not mince words, as he answered every point made by Bullard.