EDITORIAL - Content must lead the change

These are words often used to describe the Philipine press - the freest in Asia, rambunctious, unfettered.

A perpetual teenager in the growth pangs of democracy, the press as the Fourth Estate has never let go of its role as a watchdog of government.

If it did, the lack of a counterweight for political power  would surely leave the country in pitiful disarray. 

In Cebu, the community press weathered Martial Law in 1972 and the vestiges of Manila-centric Marcos rule by siding with the opposition or doing a balancing act of pragmatism and sharpening its sense of professional journalism.

Today we have  the oldest surviving pre-war paper, The Freeman,  Sun.Star and its network of provincial affiliates  (both entities own their own Cebuano tabloids ) and the youngest of the triad, 17-year-old Cebu Daily News which launched in May the first free weekly Cebuano tabloid Cebu Libre.

A metropolis with three English dailies and three Cebuano tabloids, supported by advertisers and readers, is a marvel in the Philippines. 

Nowhere else in the country can you find this kind of lively, competitive mix of media supported by a local economy.

The eco-system includes a take-no-prisoners brand of radio commentaries and broadcasts, which complement news coverage and entertainment fare of TV networks.

But the ground is shifting under our feet.

With the first Philippine hookup to the Internet in 1994, the world of news media and public affairs has found itself caught in a swirl of change.

Within two decades,  traditional channels  -  print, TV, and radio -  have had to quickly stretch to claim new ground in digital platforms.  The new order comes with its own metrics, vocabulary and a wider, younger audience to serve.

No media outlet worth its ink or airwaves today can stay relevant without a website, Facebook account, blog, video, SMS, webchat, or mobile app.

What was once a known population of readers or listeners/viewers to be reached with  well-crafted messages is unfolding into a whole generation of digital natives, whose needs and wants are telescoped into high-resolution images and shorter bursts of information  in smaller and smaller glass screens.

Everything happens in a buffet of multi-media offerings.  Faster seems better.

And the disruption continues.

Before we say the digital world has sounded the death knell for newspapers or left radio talk shows by the wayside as quaint conversations, we should recognize a happy problem: Audiences are expanding; people are hungrily consuming more and more stories and information.

The challenge for the media is to stay relevant and adapt to changing habits without losing its sense of mission.

Truth-telling.  Fairness.  The discipline of verification. Aspiring for the public good.  Social justice.

These values don't go out of style with Google.

What will change is the formats and delivery systems to suit consumers, who increasingly want information tailored to their individual schedule and lifestyle.

Elections ahead in May 2016 will test the mettle of journalists in a different way.  With almost a third of voters composed of  "millennials" (several studies lump them in the age group of 18 to 32), the power to influence a "selfie" generation should not be reduced to a recipe for a viral video with a good soundtrack.

The ability to question the status quo, to examine those who seek public mandates,  to press for accountability of those who abuse that  trust remains the job of a journalist, who's basically a nosy version of a citizen activist with better access.

What affects Cebuanos in the gut or warms their heart? What's the best vision for sustainable growth?  Which way should leaders go? And who  should follow them?

The demand for answers to this should be as forceful as the momentum to reach 10 million tweets for #AlDub, the trending love team whose relationship lives in TV-hyped imagination.

That is, if we choose to let content lead to meaningful change, to hold on to values that endure, and resist reducing communities to a marketplace of goods  and services engulfed in cyberbabble.