“With its coverage of the various domestic runs and overseas, Manila Standard slowly but steadily gained credibility as a distinct gatekeeper of news and information – both in its hard and soft sections”
The English language newspaper Manila Standard, which has morphed a few times from an upscale tabloid to a Tall Boy to a full broadsheet, is on a roll in its fourth decade, the deadly coronavirus 2019 pandemic notwithstanding.
The newspaper, disclosed to the reading public on Philippine newsstands in 1987, rolled its presses to a fourth decade on February 11, 2017, its news executives, reporters, the newsroom’s unsung heroes, the administrative, advertising, circulation and printing staff at the ready for the new challenge launched four years earlier.
On January 1, 1983, newspapers faced the summons of the Internet. Prior to this, the various computer networks did not have a standard way to communicate with each other.
A new communications protocol was established called Transfer Control Protocol/Internetwork Protocol (TCP/IP).
That challenge has not been lost on the staff of the newspaper while getting themselves up to the minute on the digital age, sometimes referred to as the information age.
This is generally considered to be that time in the 21st century, starting with the widespread use of the Internet, when we shifted from traditional industry to an economy based on information and communication technologies.
With the new roll, the newspaper is complemented by its digital service and its social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The founders of the Manila Standard, created the publication, persuaded there was room for a newspaper “that seeks to present facts…to serve as an intellectual forum for ideas, whether clashing or complimentary, to test the limits of investigative reporting.”
Its maiden editorial was precise in the newspaper’s mission: “To stand firm in the face of sly machinations of power brokers; to offer nuggets from the arts, which are necessary if we are to live as sensitive human beings; to tell the stories of the little day-to-day heroisms that, minus the benefits of publicity mills, go sadly unnoticed and unmarked.”
Manila Standard hit the discriminating consciousness of the Filipino news readers on Feb. 11, 1987, fresh on the heels of what is now described as the Mendiola massacre – a confrontation between farmers rallying for and reform and in protest against President Corazon Aquino which ended in a shooting.
The violent incident killed 13 and injured 74 more.
Readers had a first glimpse of the tall-man size newspaper—loosely, if immodestly, translated as “great in vertical dimension and high in stature”— nine days after a newly ratified Constitution was promulgated.
More than defining the news it underscored the future of competition in the discerning, if tasteful, print industry.
It competed with other firmly installed publications while it wrestled for a share of the advertising pie and attention from the opinionated and well-informed public.
As the Manila Standard and other newspapers raced frenetically for honest, balanced and accurate reportage, they individually raised the challenge whether they could continue to be relevant in the years ahead.
The Manila Standard, for its part, has struggled—and has survived more than three backbreaking decades, despite numerous challenges, including the onslaught of technology, and some changes in ownership and names—like Manila Standard Today and The Standard.
Through the years, and thanks in large part to the people who literally manned the fort 24/7, the Manila Standard earned credit for its Xcellence, Xperience, and Xcitement—attributes that have defined and continue to define the newspaper.
As it continues to roll off the press today, February 11, 2023, and navigate online, the Manila Standard continues to be emboldened by its commitment to provide information far and wide.
It continues to endorse the axiom that the newspaper will continue to be the “honest mirror of society.”
The Manila Standard gets its muscle from the men and women who contribute their time and best lights to give the necessary information for its readers in this era of SMS and the Internet – the editors and copy tasters, the reporters and the correspondents, the layout artists, the page designers, the editorial assistants and the other staff.
As the newshounds and the staff rise to the requirements of its uncharted fourth decade, they get reassurance from the efforts of their elders who blazed a trail in column inches for them in the newsroom in an earlier punishing clime.
With them were the circulation, the advertising and the human resources departments, the same departments that will stand alongside the news department in the years hence to help the news department pursue the newspaper’s mission “to be a vital link in the struggle for change…evolve into a truly unfettered, intelligent—and therefore responsible—press, cognizant of and vigilant against the pitfalls that litter the road toward freedom and justice.”
With its coverage of the various domestic runs and overseas, Manila Standard slowly but steadily gained credibility as a distinct gatekeeper of news and information—both in its hard and soft sections.
As the Manila Standard stands on the headland of a promising future, its news executives, the unsung heroes and other staff take great pride in looking back at some of the major events at home and abroad during the past three decades, confident they will have the same energy and commitment to gear up to similar browbeating assignments.
But as they look back to developments at home and overseas, they have their resolve to move forward, in keeping with their mission and vision to seek the truth and report it, which includes fact-checking, not intentionally distorting information, identifying sources, avoiding stereotypes, and supporting the open exchange of opinions.
(HBC, a twice returnee to the MS, was a former senior correspondent of Reuters, covering Asia and the Philippines, when he was not teaching in the undergraduate and graduate courses. He is at present the paper’s Opinion Editor.)
