What makes News5 distinct from other news organizations
Competition among big TV networks’ news broadcasts is tough, but TV5’s news and information arm News5 handles the challenge with the help and foundation of veteran broadcast journalists.
News5’s executives and anchors Luchi Cruz-Valdes, Ed Lingao, Twink Macaraig, DJ Sta. Ana, Patrick Paez and Roby Alampay brought all the learnings from their many years of experience in journalism, having worked before in different print and TV news organizations.
“We’ve all been through gy years and years of broadcast journalismournalism work and we all know how w the competition is at the moment, ent, so I think that’s something we can proclaim is ours. While we all know now that ABSCBN and GMA-7 are also veterans, which make them formidable rmidable as news organizations, s, we would like to think that the main thing we bring ring into News5 is we have ave the experience that hat ABS- CBN and GMA MA separately have, andd we can bring those e experiences at workk here to our advan- tage, setting up fromm virtually zero,” News5s5 Head Luchi told the he press in a recent innterview.
Luchi is one of the founding members of Probe Productions, Inc. She also worked for GMA-7 and ABS-CBN before transferring to TV5 in 2008. Having worked as a broadcast journalist for more than two decades already, Luchi said they brought to TV5 all the knowledge they earned and left the “bad habits” they developed behind.
“It’s safe to say na wala kaming bad habits ng any old organizations. I know all organizations develop bad habits. It’s part of learning. I like to say na coming from there and moving into here, we have developed nasty habits, but one thing we’re sure of is we’re careful not to develop bad habits of the past,” she said.
The News5 head also noted that their advantage over other news organizations is hav- ing a “very good mixture of young and veterans.” Younger generation of journalists and news anchors, including Grace Lee, Lourd De Veyra and Jun Sabayton, join the likes of veteran journalists Erwin Tulfo, Cheryl Cosim, Cherie Mercado and Martin Andanar in their “Aksyon” news shows.
They also have young field reporters though News5 executives pointed out that they equip them first with knowledge before they let the reporters go out to look for news.
“We bring into our work now our experiences of the past. We also would like to think na we’re bringing into this organizations, with its relatively new pool of reporters, a mentoring skill and competence which will serve the new breed of
FROM LEFT: Ed Lingao, Twink Macaraig, Roby Alampay, Patrick Paez, Luchi Cruz-Valdes and DJ Sta. Ana
reporters very well.
“We know how it works. We’ve been there, we know what they’ve been doing now. We know the landscape and give it to our new reporters, for them to munch on and develop their own set of skills. It’s a very good mixture of the young and vet- erans,” she said.
Luchi believes every working day is a learning experience, thus, News5 holds its postmortem daily after each show. She critics every story and detail, including how a news was written, shown in video, delivered by the reporter and read by the anchor.
“We do give training, especially when big events come up, nagdyegeneral assembly kami. We don’t really hold classes that often but we do postmortems daily. We believe in day-to-day postmortem kasi ’yung mga sins ng news reporting, kailangan mahuli pagkatapos mangyari. Otherwise, mauulit nang mauulit. So dapat ma- (since),” he said.
His training with Amanda definitely paid off. Miguel went on to win David Foster’s “Born To Sing Asia” in 2011 and was even selected by the award-winning music producer and songwriter to perform with him at his “David Foster & Friends” concert in Singapore the same year.
His experience playing with David is invaluable. “(I admire) his musicality and... (he’s) very professional. He just plays, (and you just) go for it,” Miguel said of the multiple Grammy winner. And for sure the music veteran had a lot to teach him as well.
While Miguel says he likes listening to Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith and Bruno Mars, point out mo na kaagad,” she said.
The advent of social media somehow changes the landscape of news reporting, but Luchi said they still remain careful in picking up stories from the Web. For News5, they would rather “be right than first but wrong” in releasing “scoops.”
“Nag-aantay muna kami. ‘Totoo ba ito?’ We have learned to not play that game anymore because of the sheer number of news stories that can actually be churned out on social media without any kind of vetting. So kapag napupulot namin sa social media, ‘ Hindi tayo kailangan mauna dito. Kasi kung mauna tayo at mali ito, sunog tayo.’ So, parang nagbago ang mga journalists lalo na sa stories from social media,” she said.
Aside from stiff competition among TV networks, Luchi said it is hard to change the habit of TV viewers. Amid these challenges, News5 takes pride in their “very competitive” TV ratings, especially in Visayas and Mindanao.
“In Mindanao, we have beaten ‘24 Oras’ on occasion. Not consistently, but the fact that we even beat them shows that content for content, hindi kami nahuhuli. We’re also up against habit.
“The TV viewing market is a very loyal market and the most loyal viewers are the news viewers because they’ve gotten used to the same person delivering the news to them everyday, so why will they switch? So we have to change the way we conceptualize our programs, so that each platform feeds on another, we’re still perfecting that,” Luchi said. the young singer actually has a penchant for the classics.
A fan of Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Celine Dion, Michael Bolton, Steve Perry, and more importantly, Michael Jackson, he explained, “I just prefer the style of the songs they used to sing before. They were more (expressive), the lyrics were also better... Some of the songs now are just repetitive.”
(With report from Jojo P. Panaligan)