Towards Convergence

Convergence has started to take shape in the Philippines and even in our relatively small city, Bacolod. For instance, the community newspaper that I work for has embraced the idea of having to maintain a website to cater to the needs of former Bacolod residents abroad who are unable to get a hold of a copy of our newspaper. But unlike other online news portals, like Erwin’s inq7.net, www.visayandailystar.com is not updated every few minutes but daily or sometimes once every two days depending on the work schedule of our web administrator, thus a number of emails to our site have been centered on the demand to constantly update the website.

The world has become smaller because of the rapid changes and advancements in technology, and a traditional media organization like ours also needs to keep up, merely not because of competition but to stay in the course of one of journalism’s important tenets: to deliver news fast and accurately. One particular case worth mentioning is the case of the Guardian, which is the first paper that has adapted an online-first publishing policy. Though the Guardian editor admits that the main difficulty is getting the balance right between speed and quality, she stresses that quality and accuracy are very important and should not be sacrificed or compromised.

Aside from technology, its also a profit-driven environment that has pushed media organizations to reinvent themselves with television networks and radio stations also utilizing the internet to provide information to their audience. As I had mentioned, competition has become very stiff among television networks and everyone, it seems, has been working on creating alternatives to gain an edge over the other.

Introduction

This site finally confirms my little place in the blogging world. Last year, I launched futile attempts of creating a blog but stopped short after signing up, realizing that blogging is not merely a medium but also a tool that tests one's discipline, which is necessary as the blogsite also needs to be updated. In short, I was too tired and lacked the discipline to blog.

Perhaps, the course, convergent journalism, would help me develop the discipline needed to maintain a blogsite.

I am Cedelf Tupas, 23, a journalist for the past four years in the central Philippine city of Bacolod. I was appointed recently as the sports editor of the Visayan Daily Star, the leading community newspaper in Bacolod, home of close to half a million Filipinos.

However, I am not confined to the small sports desk but find myself covering different beats from City Hall, Police when the reporters assigned to those beats are not around. I do features as well for StarLife Sunday, the Daily Star's weekly magazine. Aside from that, I am also a sports correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and had covered the Southeast Asian Games last year when it was held in our city.

Without a regular beat, my day starts at 3 p.m. at the office and ends around 8 p.m. when there are no important coverages. But when there is, I end around 11 p.m. or until past midnight. When the editor is out, I close page one, which I consider more of a punishment rather than a responsibility. hehehe

I am the eldest of three siblings (my brother is 12, while my sister is 9) and I am happy to say that they consider themselves as my biggest fans, along with my four cousins aged 12, 11, 8 and 6, respectively. (Of course, they adore me because I am the one holding their allowances). hehehe.

I love football and my ultimate dream is to cover the World Cup live.