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Tuesday, September 19, 2006
City Hall to set up feedback system for journalists’ pastime preference
Bent on entertaining foreign journalists who will cover the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit, Cebu City Hall is setting up a “feedback system” to know what particular pastime each journalist is into.
The City Government also enrolled some members of its middle management team in short courses on Korean and Japanese languages so they will be able to communicate with foreign journalists covering the summit in December.
Mayor Tomas Osmeña sees the presence of the international media as a “window of opportunity in promoting Cebu.”
“What is important is the media that is accompanying the VIPs because many of them are not ordinary media. They’re high level. They are anchormen, anchorwomen. They are the Max Soliven level, not beat reporters,” he told a news conference yesterday.
Maintain contact
“We want to make friends with these people while they are here. Amigo, amigo lang so that we can maintain contact with them when they go back there. We will invite them and ask for their help in the future,” the mayor said.
The mayor’s management team’s (MMT) role is to make friends with the journalists and to service them.
Training the MMTs is “positioning” the City Government to get ready for the summit and arrange appointments for whatever form of leisure each foreign journalist wants.
“At least, we are going to develop (the) in-house capability of our staff to speak Korean and Japanese, especially in Cebu.
Nobody speaks Korean. It’s positioning, when our team is organized here. Once we maintain contact with our counterparts in Korea and in Japan then we start getting information of who is coming then we will contact them,” he said.
“Let’s say, Mr. Akimoto of some Tokyo news. Our MMTs will ask what do you like golf or island hopping? We will buy time and arrange it for them when they come here,” the mayor added.
Osmeña said preparations for the foreign journalists’ stay are still underway because “when they come here they want something.”
“Chances are, we are not ready. We are simply trying to set up a system wherein we can get feedback of what they need so we can respond to it right away. We are just like waiters in the restaurants, I don’t know.”
The MMTs will talk to the journalists in their native tongue to serve them whatever they want.
Later, some businessmen and councilors will be tasked to talk to the journalists.
For Osmeña, the Asean summit has no impact, “as far as economy is concerned per se.”
New RP capital
“What the government is spending is more than what these delegates will ever spend. We’re just playing the role of a host, showing Manila that Cebu is now the capital of the Philippines. It’s a very strong statement. Because they are going to the capital and that capital is Cebu,” the mayor said.
But he considers entertaining the Korean and Japanese media as important in terms of livelihood “over the long run.”
“Japanese and Korean media are given a higher attention to by the City Government than the heads of state. Anyway, the others are taking care of the heads of state. With all due respect, the president of Siam will probably never be back again.
The prime minister of Japan will never come back here again. Chances are when they go back they will be talking about Cebu, no. Let’s be realistic,” the mayor said.
He said it will be costly for the City Government to advertise Cebu even in Tokyo City in Japan. If Cebu City buys a half-page space to advertise in one of the major dailies there, it will cost almost the entire budget of the City Press and Information Office for the year, said Osmeña.
“If we are going to develop actual personal relations with these media, we can ask them for help in promoting Cebu in the future. You’ll never know,” the mayor said.
He is confident that people will find his scheme more promising than what happened to the media during the Asean summit in Malaysia.
The media, he said, was not given a VIP treatment in Malaysia.
“I said that’s really a pity.” (GAC)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (September 19, 2006 issue)
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