SINCE it was founded in 1995, SunStar Davao has been committed to delivering the top stories of Davao City, Davao Region, and Mindanao.
In the last 24 years, we have written in ink the historical events that transpired in our community to be read by generations to come.
However, with the changing times, SunStar Davao needed to go beyond being simply a newspaper. The company has to implement strategies that will allow it to keep up with the digital but at the same time still deliver stories that matter to our readers.
One of those strategies is developing digital content that would allow us to effectively deliver stories to a wider audience. By taking advantage of various social media platforms, we were able to develop a variety of content that would tell the stories of Dabawenyos, Davao City, and Davao Region.
SunStar Dasig is a monthly online series that features the inspiring lives of Dabawenyos. Our Artist in Focus is also a monthly online series that showcases the talents of a variety of artists coming from different disciplines. Then we have the SunStar Focus, a bi-monthly series of short videos that features anything about Davao City.
In a bid to highlight Davao’s best, we have the monthly Best of Davao (BOD). The BOD gathers Davao’s cream of the crop and with the help of a panel of judges, we choose which of the best is truly the best. Started in 2014, the SunStar Best of Davao was originally published only for the newspaper but in 2017, we started producing it as an online video with a print component.
In July this year, we started with our weekly online newscast, Weekly Newsbits. The newscast provides our online followers a round-up of the news stories for the week. Today, we are also set to launch Super Balita Newsbits, which is in Bisaya.
Aside from the Super Balita Newsbits, our Bisaya tabloid has launched earlier Istorya Ta!, a bi-monthly talk show that features a range of topics. We are also set to release an online video of Dear Noy Tikyo, a program that provides letter senders advice on life and love.
All of our video productions are uploaded on Facebook and YouTube.
On top of these video productions, we have also consistently produced infographics for our social media accounts -- Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, to allow followers to better understand certain issues or concepts.
We also continue to upload our stories on our website, www.sunstar.com.ph/davao, to allow our stories to reach more readers.
There is still a lot for SunStar Davao to do when it comes to making innovation in terms of community journalism. One thing is for sure though, with the digital times, SunStar Davao together with the SunStar Philippines network is evolving to become a multi-media group.
Along with our evolution in marrying print and digital is our continued commitment to deliver stories of the community we are in through all forms of communication media we have available.