SOME people just pay lip service to the youth, but I’m a big believer in evolution and revolution. That’s what we’re seeing now in media, and while I’m hardly young anymore, I’ve done my best to keep learning, reinventing myself and embracing and instigating change. The alternative is to become a living fossil, which unfortunately is what some of the (usually older) people in media are.
Two events reminded me of the need to continue reaching out to the youth, and to always be ahead of the pack. Last week, I was asked by my friend Grace Cuenca of PR firm Strategic Edge to give a talk to her class. Grace teaches an introduction to PR class at Mapua, and my audience consisted of young business administration students. Nope, I wasn’t there to talk about PR — in fact, I hate people who think of blogging and online media as a PR tool, and who confuse journalism with writing nothing but positive stuff about company. Instead, Grace wanted me to talk about new media and share my experiences as the multimedia editor of the number one Philippine online news site.
Well, I don’t know if her students were just being polite when they were laughing at my jokes, but I hope somehow I was able to impart some knowledge. You see, I believe in very casual presentations and talking the language of the audience I’m addressing. In this case, it helped that my message was basically that the blogs, podcasts and online video that these young people are very much familiar with and which they are already taking for granted, are being embraced by mainstream media. Yup, the old fogeys are finally getting it!
I’m actually a late bloomer when it comes to blogging. I only started in 2004, which was when I started evangelizing, if you will, and promoting blogging within what was then INQ7.net as a tool for online journalism. The funny thing is that I remember a fellow blogger and online friend (whom I’ve never met in person still, actually) who was an online editor at another news publication, asking, basically, “Why the heck would INQ7.net want to become a blog when it’s already the most-visited Philippine news site?” Not to mention the so-called blogging purists who howled over the prospect of mainstream media blogging and invading their “turf.” As if the online world is the monopoly of anyone.
Obviously, it took some time for even a nimble online news organization to embrace blogging and other innovations, but this year, we finally launched our own blogs, starting with this very one as the guinea pig. Today, we launched the 25th blog in our network, the corporate social responsibility blog Not Just for Profit. We have an online video site, iVDO on Yahoo!, and our own news and tech podcasts. All under the multimedia division that was set up just this year, of which I’m editor.
I’m not going to lie to you: sometimes it’s frustrating to have to wait for so long to see the change you’re envisioning. Then again, you’ll have to remember that the old INQ7.net was a 50-50 venture with a partner, and that this partnership prevented us from doing some things and going in certain directions. Another thing is that, heck, it really does take longer to get things done when you see what the corporate people have to deal with in meetings, strategic planning sessions and such. And believe me, as one of those who was there in 2000 to spin off the old Inquirer.net into INQ7.net, even before INQ7.net was formally incorporated and launched in 2001, sometimes it takes forever for things to change.
(to be continued)
