Barely two months since its launch, Stand for Truth (SFT) is already changing the landscape of online news reporting—serving cutting-edge, data-driven content that has become a hit among millennial viewers.
Stand for Truth stories are averaging 400,000 combined views every single day on GMA News’ Facebook page, with several stories racking up over a million views. One of its most viewed stories was that of Google restricting a particular mobile phone brand access to its Android operating system. The story has 1.5 million views on Facebook as of this writing. On YouTube, one of its viral stories was a dwarf allegedly caught in a mobile phone photograph, reaching 1.3 million views.
Stand for Truth is anchored by multi-awarded documentarist, writer, photographer, and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) advocate Atom Araullo. He is joined by GMA resident political analyst Richard Heydarian and Kapuso personality Joyce Pring.
A product of an innovation grant from online video platform YouTube, Stand for Truth features reports by the young and for the young while continuing the legacy and the principles of the GMA newsroom.
From day one, the newscast has been transparent to feedback. On its pilot airing, Atom and Richard opened the newscast by acknowledging the comments they received—even reading the negative remarks from netizens.
Richard has earned the attention of netizens with his bold analyses on issues such as the President’s rape jokes, the Chinese Debt Trap and the West Philippine Sea. These issues are made easier to understand by infographics created by GMA News Online’s Digital Video Lab.
Meanwhile, SFT reporters—namely Bhea Docyogen, Anthony Esguerra, Asmarie Labao, Shai Lagarde, Ardo Miravalles, Darwin Quirino, Manal Sugadol, Larize Lee, Eduard Farina, and Jerald Uy—after being trained to produce reports with very short lead time, are now producing longform documentaries, all shot just on mobile cameras. Shai, in particular, stood out immediately and was already tapped to report for the GMA News TV news magazine program Brigada.
Stand For Truth is produced by GMA Public Affairs, another aspect that differentiates it from other newscasts.
Whether they are at home or on the road, younger viewers are making Stand for Truth their nightly viewing habit. Proof that while technology continues to revolutionize the way information is consumed, the tenets of journalism remains the same—to uphold the truth in every story.
The 20-minute news program is livestreamed, from Monday to Friday at 8:30 p.m. via GMA News Facebook page and GMA Public Affairs YouTube channel.