COMMITTED to assure its fellow Batangueños of a renewed responsible journalism, practicing journalists from different platforms gather together with the other sectoral representatives, in a whole-day workshop on the membership and organization structure and mechanism, Wednesday.
The event, hosted by the Philippine Press Institute (PPI) and with the assistance of the International Media Support (IMS) was held at Hotel Ginazel & Events Center in Brgy. Gulod Labac, in Batangas City. Other than membership and organizational structure of the Batangas Media-Citizen Council (BMCC), matters on complaint handling and settlement procedure were also discussed during the workshop.
“We had our initial orientation on June 6, 2022 but the CoVid-19 pandemic prevented us from forming the council towards the end of year 2023. But it is an opportune time for us that International Media Support (IMS) partnered with the Philippine Press Institute (PPI) this year, and now that the pandemic is over, there’s no way out to go on with the formation of the council,” PPI Trustee for Luzon Joenald Medina Rayos, also the president of the Batangas Press Club (BPC) and publisher of Pahayagang Balikas, said.
Prior to the breakaway session of sectoral representatives attending the workshop, PPI Executive Director and Head of the Training Operations and Special Projects Ariel Sebellino presented the 5 core values of a contemporary Media-Citizen Council: What is your sense of purpose? Is it a felt need? How will it serve your community? Is it beneficial to media, its stakeholders and the citizenry? How will it enable media accountability and self/co-regulation?
With Iloilo Media-Citizen Council chairman and PPI Trustee for Visayas, Francis Angelo, assisting, sectoral representatives from the media, business, religious, academe, law enforcement, and Fil-Chinese community were divided into four (4) groups and have their output presented in the afternoon.
“The ‘partnership’ built on the creation of this media-citizen council is not an ordinary way of forming an organization. More than ever, it is building stewardship among stakeholders founded on commitment to promote responsible journalism to build a well-informed citizenry,” Rayos pointed out.
Meanwhile, Sebellino reiterated the PPI’s commitment to support initiatives on media self-and-co-regulation, promote quality journalism to better safeguard media freedom and accountability and news subject’s right to reply, and give the public free, truthful and timely information.
The Batangas Media-Citizen Council (BMCC) is set to be launched on November 10 coinciding with a seminar-workshop on Ethic Journalism and Digital Security.| – BNN
