One, united vision for journalism
MediaQuest Holdings, Inc. launches flagship news station One News on Cignal TV
Social media like Facebook and Twitter are making people feel that they have the news all the time. But do they have the right news? Free and accessible information on the internet does not necessarily translate to what is authentic. Beyond careful discernment, being well informed is a daunting and delicate task.
This is the reason why MediaQuest Holdings, Inc. launched One News, the flagship news station on Cignal TV, available on Channels 8 on SD and 250 on HD.
There is a need for a credible and comprehensive source of information. Amidst the cacophony of entities, there has to be one eminent authority to give voice to the most important issues of the day and provide meaningful insights and analyses on what these issues mean for the Filipino community.
One News is more than the sum total of its parts. It combines the training and expertise of the biggest and most trusted organizations in the Philippines, namely The Philippine
Star, BusinessWorld, TV5 and Bloomberg TV Philippines. One News aims to centralize its efforts and strengths to reinvent the way Filipinos consume and dissect news and current events.
“One News is a news channel that draws its strength, its news and authoritativeness from strong news institutions in the Philippines,” said Ray C. Espinosa, president of MediaQuest Holdings, Inc.
“Gathering the content from them, curating and moderating it, we should be able to achieve a viewer base that understands that news is about trust and the organizations behind this news channel are eminently trustworthy news institutions in their respective rights,” he added.
The synergy of strengths and capabilities of established names in print with respected broadcast news institutions make One News an enviable powerhouse with its credible bench of journalists, anchors and hosts expert in different fields. These journalists present the mainstream news, business, sports, information technology and entertainment.
“The idea is that the content will come from all the four strategic partners so that we’re able to present different points of views,” emphasized Jane JimenezBasas, president and CEO of Cignal TV, Inc.
“At the end of the day, as in any news media outfit, the objective is to be able to inform the public and to be able to educate them, hoping that as individuals, we’ll be able to make better decisions for ourselves and for the community of which we are all part of,” Ms. Basas added.
She noted that One News marks the first time in media history that established news organizations are involved in a cooperative endeavor to deliver news on a national scale.
“It’s unique in that sense because it plays on the strengths of each of the brands and each of the organizations, putting everything into one voice that is delivered to the public,” she said.
One News will deliver at least six hours of fresh and vetted content every day. The likes of Cito Beltran, veteran talk show host and columnist of The
Philippine Star, will spearhead the daily program and discuss the day’s most pressing issues with Agenda right after the morning newscast Rush Hour.
As the market opens, businessminded viewers can tune into BusinessWorld Live hosted by a team of celebrated Bloomberg news anchors John Patrick Ong and Danie Laurel.
Bolstering the line-up will be lifestyle and magazine shows such as: Go Local, which will feature the most promising and newly discovered Filipino entrepreneurs; Gear Up, which will cover topics relevant to daily life like technology and stories of human interest; and Titans, which will profile the most important and influential names in the Philippines, from the billionaire captains of industry to the everyday heroes of Filipino life.
Accomplished veterans and young, rising stars in journalism will be behind these programs. “In our line-up of news anchors and public affairs show hosts, we have both the young and the mature because we want to make sure that we cater to the widest possible audience demographic, and to actually capture the points of views of both the young and the old,” Ms. Basas explains.
Capping the day off will be The Chiefs, an evening talk show where the respective heads of The
Philippine Star, BusinessWorld and TV5 are given the opportunity to present their different perspectives on the day’s most significant concerns. The Philippine Star’s Ana Marie Pamintuan, BusinessWorld’s Roby Alampay, and TV5’s Ed Lingao will bring with them the full weight of their journalistic expertise every night.
“I think it’s very important when you become an issuesoriented news channel that the hosts and the anchors have the gravitas to discuss those issues,” said Mr. Espinosa. “We’re not talking about superficial discussions. We want discussions to be deep, for them to ask searching questions, not just superficial ones, so that we can better expose the subject matter in its fullest as part of discovering and searching for the truth. That’s how we want to distinguish ourselves.”
Mr. Espinosa added that One News has chosen hosts and anchors with the most credibility in dissecting critical issues, the integrity to talk about them in a fair and balanced way, and the expertise in analyzing them from different perspectives.
“That’s what we want to be known for: credibility, trust. Essentially, we want to become a news authority, especially in this age when there’s so much talk on fake news all over the place. We need to reassure the public that there are still organizations like us that invest in this type of institutions,” he said.