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Friday, March 29, 2024

We’re here for the long haul

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Anniversaries often prompt people to look back. Thirty-five years ago, the Manila Standard was born, a product of the good intentions and sheer willpower of the people who gave rise to it.

Over the next three and a half decades, moving with the ebbs and flows of contemporary history, the newspaper also faced challenges and thrived. Through it all, what remained constant was the desire and commitment of its people to deliver the news and contribute to the national discourse.

Manila Standard witnessed leadership changes in the Philippines and its own organization. From day to day it fought small and big fights, and managed to live yet another day.

Anniversaries also lead us to ponder where we are. This year, for instance, is a crucial juncture in our nation’s history. We are seeing encouraging signs that we are finally able, not to eliminate the coronavirus but to co-exist with it while protecting our health, our way of life and our economy. We are still battling gaping inequalities among our people.

Most importantly, the elections in May will give us the opportunity to choose our leaders anew. As a media organization, the Manila Standard has a crucial role to play in disseminating information, preventing disinformation, and providing its readers the truth on which to base their views, opinions, and democratic decisions.

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Finally, anniversaries demand of us to imagine the future and envision our place in it.

Journalism has always been a turbulent profession. It is shaped by the events it reports, but is also determined – plagued, if you will – by the conditions and dilemmas inside it. There are realities that practitioners must grapple with, and often these realities run in conflict with the principles we learned in school and seek to uphold at all times. We are weighed down by divergent loyalties. We are, ourselves, sometimes put in uncomfortable positions. We worry about the safety of our colleagues.

And as always, we fight our battles one day at a time. We brave all these challenges so we can live to fight again the following day.

We have long conceded that journalism is never a feel-good profession. It constantly moves us, every time we turn in for the night, to wonder whether we did the best we could under the circumstances, if we could have done better, if there is no way previous decisions would come back to haunt us and make us regret our choices.

But every day, too, we wake up with a renewed commitment. Today as we mark our 35th anniversary, we say this much: the people behind Manila Standard are in here for the long haul.

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