By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
It is now our 30th year of coming up and dishing out the news in this region– the way it should be, the good, the bad and the ugly. We have become a lot mellower the past years. Firstly, in order to survive as a paper. Secondly, due to changes in the environment. Thirdly, the reading propensities of the people in general.
Now, there is still confusion in my mind as to where we should be going, at what speed? With what? The world is confused. So am I. It is easy theoretically. But not when you factor in the costs, the efforts required and the strategy on how to make the whole exercise a success. Therein lies the crux of the matter. Everybody is failing. Even the biggest guys in the industry have gone under. Newsweek, the Washington Post, to mention just two.
Can there be a small niche that a small local paper can squeeze into and be able to survive? That is the question which will be bugging me for countless nights to come.
Perhaps, the course to take is to implement small changes, bit by bit. In the course of time, we might be able to sum these things up and, who knows, come up with the winning formula. First major change is the idea of scoops, usually the effect of painstaking investigative efforts.
In one gathering of local media experts or mentors, I tried to justify the usual uniformity of news you see in local papers. What is the use of expending too much expenses and effort to come up with mind-boggling articles? By the time your paper is printed, you might have been beaten to the draw by a day or two by the social media platforms. So as I look at things, the battle should be drawn around who will come up with the better analysis the masses can appreciate and identify with. Something they can understand and resonate to.
Secondly, which is the subject of an email am about to send to our writers around these mountains, the manner of writing.
I was looking into the pages of a foreign car magazine about two months ago on how to convert an old car into a pure electric powered conveyance tool. And I was surprised at how short the articles were. People nowadays are impatient, always rushing. So concise articles are preferred. Therefore, articles should not exceed 500 words. That might even be too long if written in a boring way. Yes, that is now the message I am going to send out there.
It will take some adjustment, but adjust we will. Other changes will be implemented as they come into my head. So, hang on.**
