In the celebration of the World's Press Freedom Day, an online forum has been conducted on May 3, 2021, by The Philippine Investigative Journalism on their Facebook page. The guest speakers were some of the most notable media experts in the broadcasting and media industry. In line with the forum's slogan "The State of Media Freedom in the Philippines: Breaking barriers to bring Information to the public" the forum furthermore tackled the effects of COVID 19 in terms of providing information to the public as well as the most heated ABS-CBN franchising issue that has predominantly affected the provision of news during the pandemic.
Personally, the most interesting part of this webinar was the part where Ms. Ging Reyes, the Senior Vice President and Head of Integrated News and Current Affairs Division of ABS-CBN Corporation, talked about the struggles she and her colleagues had faced during the shutdown of their legacy network.
She had expressed in her talk their mental and emotional anguish concerning the killing of their franchise application. She recalled how she and her team made adjustments on how they line up their stories in their news programs and even included news articles in Filipino in their digital news portals just to reach out to all their audiences. She also mentioned the aftermath of losing their network's franchise, according to her, their network could no longer make documentaries and continue the operation of their news and current affairs as they already lack finances. However, regardless of all the difficulties, ABS-CBN still re-invent themselves to provide news and information through all media outlets available, doing everything they can in the name of public service.
The topics for me are really timely and relevant especially with the circumstances we've been facing today concerning the pandemic. Hence it is important to be aware of all the news and information at all times. The shutdown of ABS-CBN undeniably impacted the most convenient way to obtain news and information which used to be straight right from the television. Meanwhile, nowadays, if we choose to watch ABS-CBN news, we needed to have an internet connection to stream online, which is indeed a hassle, hence most people especially the elderly transfer to other channels to watch for news. But given the fact that for decades, we've been reliant on ABS-CBN for news and information, it's indeed a great adjustment for everyone to transfer to another news channel. Regardless, I believe that everything happens for a reason, and what we can only do is to keep supporting our broadcasters and journalists who risk their lives in the midst of the pandemic just to serve us the needed information in these trying times.
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