To be named “Newspaper of the Year” puts a heavy load on the recipient. While the paper’s stock perhaps gets a lift with the award, it weighs heavily on it at the same time to keep decency in its reporting. And so while we in The Standard are elated over this honor, we are humbled by the greater task of keeping that honor sacred.
The award came at a time when The Standard is in transition. We are making the crossover into the digital realm in a way that will give us a cutting-edge in news and information dissemination.
While at it, the print version has gone transformation both in size (“tall boy”) and content (varied and meaty) to keep pace with the fast-changing world of newspapering. This is all in sync with management’s thrust to bundle both print and digital platforms into a more cost-efficient tool to expand the paper’s reach and promote advertisers’ products.
In the face of these innovations to keep the paper a viable concern, one thing has remained unchanged: reporting news “as is.” Its DNA can be traced to The Standard’s precursor — The Manila Standard — founded in 1987. Then as now, that mandate to print unvarnished truth is enshrined in the newsroom and consciously observed by the editors and writers. Often putting them and the paper under undue external pressures. Still, unwaveringly, we are committed to pursue objective journalism on the news side and constructive opinions in the editorial page as our way of giving substance to the honor bestowed upon us.
That, we owe no less to the reading public and the nation.
Rollie G. Estabillo
Publisher