Citizen Journalism Seminar at HCDC, Davao

Davao City - More than a thousand Boto Mo Ipatrol Mo volunteers attended the Citizens Journalism Seminar at Holy Cross of Davao College Gym on Friday. The seminar aims to educate volunteers on journalism ethics, visual story telling, and their responsibilities as partners in keeping an eye on the 2010 elections.
Veteran and multi-awarded broadcast journalist Maria Ressa (SVP for News and Current Affairs, ABS-CBN) and Charrie Villa (Head, News Gathering, ABS-CBN) were among the speakers while anchor/reporter Atom Araullo helped the participants as the moderator.
The Citizens Journalism seminar also aims to inform the volunteers of their responsibilities as patrolers and teach them the basic journalism concepts.

Citizen Journalism is the concept of members of the public "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information."

According to the seminal 2003 report We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information,” Authors Bowman and Willis say: "the intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires."


People without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology like internet and cellular phones “to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others. For example, you might write about a city council meeting on your blog or in an online forum. Or you could fact-check a newspaper article from the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias on your blog. Or you might snap a digital photo of a newsworthy event happening in your town and post it online. Or you might videotape a similar event and post it on a site such as Youtube (Wikipedia).”
While i was doing my interview, a student came to me and asked me, "are Filipinos ready for this?" Yes, i believe we are all ready for this. The concept of citizens taking part in public awareness has been proven so many times especially when the ABS-CBN launched the Citizen Patro, Boto mo i patrol mo, bayan mo i-patrol mo, and in 2009, BMPM Ako ang simula.