WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2009

‘Di lang may

silver lining,
K 3
may rainbow pa!

First Filipino online reporter tells all

From page K1
skeletal force, it was decided to make do
with one reporter, but to start Big Time by
going straight to Malacañang.
Which was why I ended up in Mala-
cañang armed with the latest Sony Erics-
son internet-ready phone/palm computer
equipped with a folding keyboard, three
boxes of callings cards and a ready expla-
nation on what the INQ7.net was all
about.
One thing going for INQ7.net then was
Tiglao’s clout as Press Secretary. He was al-
so just as gung-ho in promoting the
INQ7.net brand name. Tiglao made it a
point to plug INQ7.net ahead of me, and al-
ways introduced me as a reporter from
“INQ7 Dot Net, a joint news website of the
Philippine Daily Inquirer and GMA Channel
7.” It’s the same line I heartily and shame-
lessly repeated when I introduced myself
during press conferences.
How to start a buzz
Distributing calling cards was another
surefire trick to start a buzz. I must have
given away 300 cards in four months to
cabinet secretaries, undersecretaries, their
aides and executive assistants, their secre-
taries, their security and drivers, their
wives and girlfriends. I shook hands and
handed out cards, then I explained what
INQ7.net was all about.
Filing stories—and reading these on-
line—even while the media briefing was
ongoing brought me to an undescribable
high. I didn’t have to wait for the news-
paper the following day to enjoy my
“scoop!.”
The shameless plugs had its rewards. The
TV replays of President Macapagal-Ar-
royo’s media briefings soon had the name
INQ7.net written beneath my image as I
asked the President a question. The word
INQ7.net would get written in name tags
during dinners with the President and Cabi-
net members in the Palace. INQ7.net was a
media entity listed whenever Malacanang’s
media office invited reporters to a cover-
age. INQ7.net was no longer unknown. In
fact, in a matter of three months, INQ7.net
had become the media to reckon with.
read the internet anyway and who will take
you seriously, it’s just internet, were the
questions they often asked.
‘Empty boasts’
There were also those who questioned
my saying that the INQ7.net page views
had already breached the million mark,
adding that these were “empty boasts.” The
argument was that the Philippines did not
have 1 million internet users. But page
views do not refer to individuals, and in-
stead, to the number of clicks a mouse
makes as it points the cursor to a page. One
internet user may actually make 20 hits or
page views in one sitting as he reads the
INQ7 headlines, the editorial and columns,
and the entertainment and lifestyle sec-
tions.
One must also not forget the overseas
Filipinos’ thirst for local color, which can
come in the form of stories about food
and fiestas, travel destinations and show
biz gossip. Short-lived political up-
heavals can also trigger heavy internet
traffic as overseas Filipinos scramble to
find information about the Oakwood
mutiny, for instance, and how it would
affect the safety of their relatives and the
future of the economy.
Team effort
From 2001 to 2004, INQ7.net made
gains that would have taken 10 or even 20
years for others. But this was not the work
of just one person. It was a team effort—of
the editorial group led by Getsy Selirio and
JV Rufino, and techies led by Bobby Gan-
tuangco, balanced with agressive market-
ing strategies here and abroad and the able
support of the administrative and finance
group.
(For a hint of it was like then, I named the
editorial room “geriatric” ward and the
techies’ areas as the “pediatrics ward.” Next
month, the former occupants of the “pedi-
atric ward,” who have started calling them-
selves extINQ, plan to mark the 10th year
anniversary of the founding of the first
news website in the history of Philippine
media.)
But INQ7 had been criticized for one
main issue: That by introducing breaking
news online, it had diminished the value of
one of journalism’s cherished practice of
getting a “scoop.” Also, that it encouraged
plagiarism since some reporters simply
download INQ7 stories, and with a little
editing, pass these off as their own. No one
can really help a plagiarist disguised as a
lazy reporter, I have often said. Let them be,
they will not last long in the industry. But a
“scoop” is another issue.
A “scoop” is just a one-story deal. You
have one “scoop” that everybody follows.
But consistently posting breaking news
ahead of others also prompts the others to
follow. That is called setting the agenda.
And it has a longer shelf-life than a
“scoop.”
Inquirer.net still No. 1
on 8th year
By Lynette Luna
Editor, Inquirer.net
INQUIRER.NET IS THE OF-
ficial website of the Philip-
pine Daily Inquirer that pro-
vides 24-hour news and
commentaries on Politics,
Sports, Lifestyle, Entertain-
ment, Business, Technology
and Opinion.
It also regularly offers
Global Nation, a channel
about overseas Filipino
workers with over 30 blogs,
special reports on relevant
issues and services like SMS
(Short Messaging Service),
MMS (Multimedia Messag-
ing Service), and RSS feeds
(Really Simple Syndica-
tion).
Based on the January-
November 2009 Quantcast
figures, Inquirer.net enjoyed
a monthly average of 27
million pageviews and 2.6
million uniques.
Inquirer.net has been con-
sistently ranked the No. 1
news website in the Philip-
pines by http://www.alexa
.com/topsites/countries/PH,
and has been adjudged
among the best by online
award-giving bodies here
and abroad.
On its third year and mov-
ing forward, Inquirer.net
(eight years from 2001 as
INQ7.net) seeks to expand
its services by beefing up its
video content and linking up
with social networking sites
like Facebook and Twitter
where the audience not only
gets to read the news but is
able to view these as well,
react and interact and be
part of the global communi-
ty through new media.

When GMA was friendly

Those were the days when the President
was friendly to media. She was also friend-
ly to INQ7.net, in fact. Her aides told me
that the President was monitoring
INQ7.net on her laptop. On a coverage in
Cavite one day, I filed a story while the me-
dia convoy was returning to Manila. As I
dropped off my bag at the Media Center in
Kalayaan Hall, my phone rang. It was the
President’s aide saying Ms Arroyo was on
the line.
It turned out that the President had
seen the story about Cavite on INQ7.net
and wanted to clarify some of her state-
ments and correct some I made that she
said were not right. Her call gave me the
chance to ask more questions, so I had an-
other exclusive story posted on the web-
site. All that happening in just a matter of
minutes.
But not all Cabinet officials and other
government functionaries understood on-
line journalism. Often, I was asked why was
I wasting my time in an industry that they
said faced a bleak future. The dotcom in-
dustry had already collapsed, so what was I
doing in a dotcom company? How many