Hooray! For the First Day!

April 24

It was a fine day, a typical sunny summer day. At 8:00 in the morning, my hands were laready damp despite the colness of the air coming from the AC vents. Yes, I was extremely nervous because it was my first day of on-the-job training in the YouScoop team of GMA News Online.

First things first, I was asked to observed how the employees work since that basically would be the same thing that I would do in the whole course of my stay in the company.

Before luch, I was asked to do an analysis of the differen citizen journalism arms in the country.

Here is what I wrote:

The power of the citizens’ voice has been increasingly recognized by different media outfits as

seen in the emergence of news sites with user-generated contents such as YouScoop of GMA

Network, Bayan mo, Ipatrol mo (BMPM) of ABS-CBN and move.ph of Rappler respectively.

This trend in the media industry in the country can also be seen worldwide. In fact, US-based

CNN also launched their citizen arm in reporting known as ireport.

In general, the above-mentioned sites for the mobile or citizen journalism has one thing in

common: all contents came from the citizens.

However, the differences in the management and administration of the news sites also echo the

differences in the format of the content found in the said sites. For instance, YouScoop and

BMPM both cater for video ang photo submissions while move.ph also contains articles ranging

from news to features stories.

BMPM’s specialization is about election-related coverages which is also the core reason why it

is founded. However,daily updates is the one that lacking in the site. As of press time, the latest

update on the site is dated April 23 and the video is a feature of an elementary school in Jolo

which is said to be fixed through the help of BMPM. Some other publicity videos are prevalent in

their site.

YouScoop on the otherhand, is not as active venue as BMPM when it comes to election-related

stories. But when it comes to daily stories such as road accidents and fire-related coverages,

the site is practically updated. Besides, a segment for YouScoop is alloted in the main news

programs of the network.

Moreover, move.ph caters not just videos and photos but mainly articles. The strength of this site

is that it is issue-based. When it comes to in-depth discussions of pressing issues, the site

offers good picks in the citizens’ perspectives.

Generally, the three sites abovementioned is not flawless as it is. But the fact that the media

organizations accept the fact that citizens can also be journalist is a good step towards

achieving an active and informed society.