For a country known for its early and long Christmas celebration, the Philippines saw people in urban areas returning to groceries in mid-December in numbers not seen before quarantine lockdowns in the first quarter of 2020.
Bacolod recorded the highest percentage recovery on December 19 at +26% of visits to Groceries and Pharmacies, according to mobility data gathered by Google. This means that visits to these locations were even higher compared to the baseline period taken in January 2020.
Visits to Groceries and Pharmacies in PH urban areas
Other urban areas that have recorded visits in higher percentages compared with the baseline are Pampanga at +21% on December 20, Metro Manila at +15% on December 20, Cagayan de Oro at +11% on December 19, Davao City at +10% on December 19. Iloilo City matched the baseline of Groceries and Pharmacies visit on December 16.
Metro Cebu’s highest percentage recovery is at -2% on December 20. Baguio City is still way down, logging only a -13% on December 17 as its highest recovery. This means that for these two urban areas, visits to Groceries and Pharmacies still have not exceeded those recorded during the baseline period in January 2020.
Visits to Groceries & Pharmacies in different urban centers
Only visits to Groceries and Pharmacies have recovered in terms of percentages to match or even exceed the visits before the quarantine. The other locations Retail and Recreation (which covers restaurants), Parks (which includes beaches), Transit Stations, Workplaces are still substantially down compared with the baseline.
The data is gathered from users of Google Maps. The changes are calculated by Google “using the same kind of aggregated and anonymized data used to show popular times for places in Google Maps.”
It was made available by Google to help inform governments and institutions in the fight against COVID-19.
I love how the New York Times displays its bylines. It comes with a photo of the author. Apart from looking good on the screen, a photo byline makes the reader “feel they know the reporter better,” according to a study by the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas. While the study said it does not increase trust or engagement on the article, that should still count for something, no? It’s easy to duplicate this on WordPress. Its open source and community-developed nature allows anyone to tweak how their site looks or functions just by referring to the extensive documentation maintained by its global network of users.
Photo byline at the New York Times.
To duplicate the photo byline, one needs to 1) sign up for a Gravatar (short for globally-recognized avatar), 2) edit theme files, 3) tweak the CSS to control the design. Gravatar.com is a service started by Automattic, the company behind WordPress. What it does is designate an avatar to display, when configured, in web forums and comment forms, based on the poster’s email address. Make sure that all your site users have a Gravatar. It’s just a matter of signing up and choosing an image.
The next step is to edit the theme files. Look for The Loop, the part of the template that displays content. If you decide to use the beautiful and new default theme Twenty Twenty-One, it is located in Template Parts > Content > content-single.php.
The byline code should be placed after <?php the_title(); ?> which prints the title and before <?php the_content(); ?>, which displays the article text. In Twenty Twenty-One, it should be before <?php twenty_twenty_one_post_thumbnail(); ?>.
I use this to render the byline: <h3><?php echo get_avatar( get_the_author_meta( ‘ID’ ), ’85’ ); ?> By <?php the_author_posts_link(); ?></h3>. What this line of code does is render the byline in level 3 heading (h3) and link the name to a page listing previous articles by the author.
On print, a byline is a reward for good work and great writing. To get a print byline is a cause for celebration. Online, however, a byline provides reader added context – through a short bio, listing of previous stories, and a link to the author’s social media accounts. All these will allow the reader to examine an author’s body of work for bias and competence.
Using a photo byline in our WordPress-powered website on Cebu.
The last thing to do in WordPress is to style the photo byline. If you only do the steps above, you will get a square photo displayed on top of the author name. To display a round avatar and have the byline displayed beside it, edit your CSS by going to Appearance > Customize in the WordPress admin. Add the code below:
For the first time ever, US consumers spent more time on applications than watching TV, according to Flurry Analytics, a mobile analytics company owned by Yahoo.
“After putting the desktop web in their rear view mirror, apps now reign supreme as the top media channel in the United States, even without the help of the mobile browser,” said Simon Khalaf, Flurry senior vice president for Product & Engineering, Publisher Products.
Writing “The cable industry faces the perfect storm: apps, app stores and apple,” in the company’s blog last Sept. 10, Khalaf said “fears surrounding the long-term prospects of the cable industry were well warranted.”
ATTENTION HOG. Mobile devices have become the primary screens of people, studies have shown.
Attention “most valuable currency”
In the second quarter of 2015, US consumers spent 198 minutes in apps daily compared to just 168 minutes on TV. Flurry pointed out that the 198 minutes is just on apps and don’t count the use of phone browsers. Including that, the average US consumer spends three hours and 40 minutes every day on mobile devices.
“The media economy used to be all about monetizing a handful of content channels, which were controlled by a handful of major media platforms like TV networks and newspapers. Now, the economy has shifted from being supply-based to being demand-based, and attention is the main currency,” the Time article said.
In the past, people depended on a medium for information and entertainment. There was no other way to know about things and events than through news and TV programs offered by large, mainstream media organizations like newspapers, radio and TV stations. We lived news vicariously through intrepid reporters.
Social networks as info platform
The Internet, however, has spawned global communities like Facebook and Twitter where people share information with their contacts.
These social networks, in turn, have become a platform where people can report about things to their own community of friends and contacts. They are not doing actual journalism, which entails a process of verification and assessment, but the postings, no matter how self-indulgent or cute some may be, have information value. We learn about things, get alerted to news by the people we know.
Today, the media environment has, to use an already abused word, been disrupted. We’ve moved away from needing a “medium” to co-existing on an information platform or various platforms that are centered on mobile. In these platforms, the work of professional media is just one of the streams we consume every minute. It is a valuable and informative stream, yes, but still just one of many. Our shift to much more open platforms has allowed a new generation of media companies to build niche audiences, an erstwhile expensive and prohibitive proposition before tech took over the world.
Collaboration
This new media environment fosters collaboration, which is something startups are good at and that’s how they’ve come to dominate our world. Mainstream media companies, however, are used to a world where they were the monopoly if not dominant businesses. Many still see themselves as gatekeepers instead of the guides in this cacophonous media environment that they can be.
Today, they are facing dire and existential challenges. But by making collaboration as much a part of its DNA as verification is to its newsroom character, traditional media companies can do well in today’s wildly-shifting technology world.
“Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility. Ethical journalism means dedication to accuracy: fact-checking and credible sources.” – US Ambassador Philip S. Goldberg
“Quality journalism enables citizens to make informed decisions about their society’s development. It also works to expose injustice, corruption and the abuse of power.” – Terence Jones, United Nations Resident Coordinator
WHILE statistics show a significant decline in the number of extra-judicial killings (EJK) in the Philippines, “there is still a tragic number of deaths” recorded the past recent years, United States Ambassador to the Philippines Philip S. Goldberg yesterday told a forum marking World Press Freedom Day.
UNITED STATES Ambassador to the Philippines Philip S. Goldberg speaks to journalists, bloggers, students and press freedom advocates during a forum to mark World Press Freedom Day in Manila, Philippines on 29 April 2015 |Photo by Cong B. Corrales
The number of EJKs, he said, including those against journalists, have declined from a high of over 200 per year in the late 2000 to around 50 to a hundred per year in recent years.
“We’ve seen some positive development with regards to press freedom in the Philippines over the last few years. But it’s not there yet,” he said, stressing that “We all have to work so that number becomes zero.”
Speaking in the same forum, Terence Jones, the United Nations Resident Coordinator, pointed out that, “At least one journalist is killed each week in conflict and non-conflict areas (around the world).”
The UN official said, “For peace to be lasting and development sustainable, human rights must be respected. Everyone must be free to seek and impart knowledge and information through media online and offline.”
According to Jones, “Quality journalism enables citizens to make informed decisions about their society’s development. It also works to expose injustice, corruption and the abuse of power.”
“At least one journalist is killed each week in conflict and non-conflict areas (around the world),” says Terence Jones, United Nations Resident Coordinator to the Philippines during a forum to mark World Press Freedom day held 29 April 2015 in Manila | Photo by Cong B. Corrales
The UN, he said, has a Plan of Action with the goal of making journalists safe and putting an end to impunity.
The Philippines is ranked as one the most dangerous places in the world for media personnel.
The UN has declared May 3rd of every year as World Press Freedom Day. The forum, held at the Bayleaf Hotel in Intramuros, was attended by media practitioners, internet bloggers, journalism students, and human rights advocates. It was organized by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) with the support of the US Embassy in Manila and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
View clip of Ambassador Goldeberg’s keynote address below. Video by Cong B. Corrales
Ambassador Goldberg, for his part, emphasized the role of “real” journalists in society, pointing out that it is a unique and venerable vocation that requires many different attributes namely, ethics, dedication and bravery.
“They give voice to those without political or economic power. Journalists do this because they have heart, they have heart to expose the truth,” he stressed.
However, he said, “anyone who knows how to write these days could call themselves a journalist.”
“In so many ways you could get your message to the public, through the internet, through blogs. In fact it seems anyone who knows how to tweet these days can say they are journalists,” Goldberg said.
But being a real journalist involves something more, he again emphasized. “It involves real truth-seeking, truth-telling. It’s not fabricating stories to make money or exaggerating the headlines to sell the paper,” the Ambassador said. “Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility. Ethical journalism means dedication to accuracy: fact-checking and credible sources. It means educating oneself on a variety of topics to ensure stories are well-informed.”
Too, Goldberg reiterated that press freedom means “freedom from fear, freedom from intimidation, freedom from violence for the journalist, and for the citizen.”
“It’s the right to tell your story, share your opinion and have your voice heard. (But) it’s a two-way street,” he said, and “that puts a tremendous burden (on journalists) in telling that story in a responsible and fair way.”
COMMUNITY journalism in Bulacan has lost one of its brightest and dedicated journalists.
Dino Balabo— of Mabuhay Newspaper, Mabuhay Newspaper-Bulacan, Punto Central Luzon Newspaper, Business Week, Philippine Star and Radyo Bulacan – succumbed to a cardiac arrest early Monday morning, September 1.
In an emailed statement, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) grieves at the passing of “another pillar of Philippine journalism.”
DINO BALABO | Photo from NUJP website
“He was the unassuming, always smiling, hardworking other half of another giant of journalism, the late Joe Pavia. Yet, notwithstanding his busy professional life, he also chose to share his expertise and love of the profession with succeeding generations as an educator at the Bulacan State University,” the statement added.
The NUJP also said that Balabo’s passing “is a great loss to the NUJP, to Philippine community journalism, and to the continuing struggle for genuine press freedom and freedom of expression in the country.”
“As we pursue our dreams of a truly free Philippine press, you and your example will always serve as in inspiration, Kasamang Dino,” NUJP added in its statement.
Below is the full text of the statement.
On the passing of esteemed community journalist Dino Balabo
Philippine journalism has lost another pillar.
Dino Balabo — of Mabuhay Newspaper, Mabuhay Newspaper-Bulacan, Punto Central Luzon Newspaper, Business Week, Philippine Star and Radyo Bulacan — is a great loss to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, to Philippine community journalism, and to the continuing struggle for genuine press freedom and freedom of expression in the country.
He was the unassuming, always smiling, hardworking other half of another giant of journalism, the late Joe Pavia. Yet, notwithstanding his busy professional life, he also chose to share his expertise and love of the profession with succeeding generations as an educator at the Bulacan State College.
To his family, the Bulacan journalism community, and to the people of Bulacan who he unselfishly served, the NUJP extends our deepest sympathies.
As we pursue our dreams of a truly free Philippine press, you and your example will always serve as in inspiration, Kasamang Dino.
