ALLOW me to defend this paper from Mayor Moreno’s protest against an advertorial published by SunStar Cagayan de Oro last December 21, 2018. In the said advertorial, President Duterte allegedly wants Moreno out of city hall because of allegations of corruption. In an interview by one of our team, Moreno asserted that it was fake news and lamented saying, “What is happening to the supposed guardians of truth? Can monetary consideration shelve truthful and fair reporting?”
Let me proceed by differentiating an editorial from an advertorial. An editorial such as this column is independent and would always toil to uphold the integrity of this paper being an independent monitor of power and committing to deliver the truth and nothing but the truth. Editorial contents are deemed to have enough news value or judged to have public value by the editor, in our case, me. In Sun.Star CDO our editorial is independent from our marketing team.
An advertorial on the other hand is a paid article, handled separately by our marketing department. It is an advertisement in the form of editorial content but is always marked paid and is placed in a box, it can never be mistaken for regular editorial content. Obviously, in a print media that is mainly dependent on ads, a paid one will guarantee inclusion in the paper but will always be taken with a grain of salt because it is a paid content. Its credibility can surely be questioned if one wishes to.
I would have to say that the advertorial in question was treading on thin ice leaving a bad taste in one's mouth. And I totally understand why Mayor Moreno cried foul over it. However it is premature to say it was fake news. I have asked my team to do a follow up on the issue and investigate on its veracity, this time not as advertorial but as news story.
While we cannot do away with advertorials as they sustain our operations, we can assure our readers that our editorial will never bend or cater to the interest of any of our advertisers. Our main obligation is to tell the truth, our only loyalty is to our readers, our news are always verified and that we remain to be independent monitors of power.
So to answer the questions of the mayor, the guardians of the truth are pretty much still here, we take it into our shoulders to play such role. We did not, we do not, and we will not shelve the truth over monetary considerations, and our reporting has always been fair as much as we can help it.
This is not to say that our editorial team is without fault. We have our share of internal struggles too as we are composed of human beings with our own biases and are friends and families of some of the people we write about. Being the new chief I have hustled with my team time and again as we differ on our judgement on certain issues. In fact changes and movements are in order as we welcome the New Year so we can play our role better. But even all that cannot and should not alter the truth.
As with our advertorials, we welcome them, but we always put them in a box, mark them as paid ads and we don’t try to trick anyone into thinking that they are not.