Aspiring journalists told: Beware

September 19, 2018: Candido ” Bong” Wenceslao Opinion Editor Sunstar Cebu explain to the student how Social Media manipulate during election on the Covering politics and Election in the social mefia (2nd from right) , Atty. ferdinand Gujilde Commission on Elections (1st from right), Atty. Frank Malilong Cebu Media Legal Aid (2nd from left) and Titus Borromeo Office of the Presidential Assistant at Marcelo Fernan media center. (CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)

Social media has drastically changed the country’s political arena in recent years, and politicians continue to ride the tide.

How then does one cover politics and the elections in the age of social media?
The answers to this question were tackled in a forum for aspiring journalists held Wednesday, as part of the 26th Cebu Press Freedom Week celebration.

Lawyer and columnist Frank Malilong, Atty. Ferdinand Gujilde of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), Titus Borromeo of the Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas (OPAV), and columnist Candido “Bong” Wenceslao spoke before sixty Mass Communication students gathered at the Marcelo Fernan Press Center in Cebu.

Malilong advised the young audience that in covering politics, journalists need to use their imagination and resourcefulness especially when the news sources are already on social media.

Malilong cited as an example Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña who maintains a very active presence on social media through his own Facebook account.
Malilong said that Osmeña’s refusal to answer media questions and to simply use social media to communicate publicly was a political strategy that Cebu media needed to overcome.

“If they do not comment on clarifications on their posts, it’s their (politicians) loss not the media’s. Yet even though they do not comment, the media still has the responsibility to find out what is true,” said Malilong.

Malilong added that when election time comes in 2019, most politicians will face the media to get all possible exposure.

For his part, Wenceslao believed that the massive movement on social media which catapulted then President Rodrigo Duterte into power will again be used by other politicians to win the elections.

Wenceslao said that the challenge for media organizations now is to correct false information spread online by certain groups to mobilize their supporters, convert doubters, and antagonize the opposition.

Meanwhile, Gujilde admitted that there are not enough government regulations which can combat the use of social media in political campaigns especially when users bank on the freedom of expression.

“We can only regulate how often they campaign on websites, but we cannot regulate how often people talk about them on their social media profile,” said Gujilde.
Malilong urged the traditional media to keep finding ways to overcome the challenges brought by social media.

“The only cure to false information is true information,” said Malilong.
The forum, organized by SunStar Cebu, was aimed at educating future journalists about the power of social media in influencing politics and how the youth can avoid being swayed blindly by social media posts.

Newspaper intern, Clarenz Mendoza, 19, said that the forum made him realize that media practitioners must always remain objective in their work.

“We must check every fact we see on the internet. The more information we fact-check, the faster we can put the world into context,” said Mendoza.