THE news industry has always been characterized by cutthroat competition and the digital revolution has only intensified the race to bring the freshest news and information to the public. Visayas' biggest newspaper, SunStar Cebu, knew this from the start and didn't waste time digitally transforming its newsroom to adapt to the fast-changing demands of its millions of readers.
At the helm of this evolution is Mildred Galarpe, associate publisher of SunStar Publishing Inc., who asserted that the newspaper has long been ahead of the game in terms of digitalization.
"SunStar was the first media company that shifted from typewriters to computers. Jesus B. Garcia, our past chairman and the Secretary of Transportation during the Ramos administration had this vision of technology being the game-changer in the media industry. The first digital transformation of the newsroom was the shift from our traditional typewriters to computers," relayed Galarpe.
This was only the beginning. With the advent of the internet, SunStar Cebu thought of a novel way of bringing the distinctly Cebuano celebration of the Sinulog Festival to the masses: through live-streaming.
"We live-streamed Sinulog about 12 or 15 years ago. We already had the website at that time and around 60 to 70 percent of visitors were from outside the country because the internet penetration in the Philippines at that time was still low. There was a chatbox when we went live where we saw comments and feedback. That was the start of our webcast," Galarpe shared.
Being the first news outlet in Visayas to live stream the event, SunStar Cebu led the way in using technology to deliver news. Today, SunStar Cebu has several webcast shows, spanning news, entertainment, medical advice, and local barangay issues.
"It was like we were a TV network doing it, and we were doing it in real-time at a very minimal cost. We had a good, solid internet connection like Converge. That was one of the reasons why it was seamless with a very stable internet on that day," Galarpe said
Social media is the next frontier for SunStar Cebu as it continues on its digital transformation journey. It has already gained 1.8 million followers on its Facebook page, where it uploads content hourly of news, and entertainment. It's also on TikTok, where it shares videos of viral trends, news, showbiz, and sports.
Digitalization did not only change how people consumed the news but it also changed the way it's being reported.
"Every minute is a deadline. The moment you get your story, the deadline is right away because there is that quick demand for information. You have three publications too: social media, the web, and the print publication. It's challenging and more interesting for journalists nowadays," Galarpe noted.
This type of news creation does away with the guesswork of which stories readers demand, as technology can already point out the trend.
"Digital tools are particularly used in the newsroom to guide us in pursuing and packaging our stories. It's more science-bound now just like the performance of reporters, in which we can see if our story is gaining traction or not," shared Galarpe. (PR)