The News UpFront: (TOP STORY) as of Tuesday, March 15, 2011 

I t's been only nine and four. Yes, nine months for The Gotcha Journalist Channel (Currents & Breaking News) and four months for The Filipino Web Channel since they were launched. Both are video outlets for my news coverage in Toronto and elsewhere. Early this month, the two channels achieved some kind of milestone when at least four of my news videos made it to the video list of the dominant internet portal America Online (AOL). There's the story of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and the two young Filipino talents who sang Canada's national anthem during a big event in the Toronto suburb of Brampton. Being in the AOL Video index for everyone to see may not be earth-shaking news but it certainly gives one bragging rights, for it's one indication of breaking through the mainstream.

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BRAGGING RIGHTS

The Inexorable Leap to Online Journalism and Video-Making

 
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Member, Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE)

and Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA)

T ORONTO – In November last year, or exactly four months to this day, I created The Filipino Web Channel in an attempt to diversify my practice of journalism.

Through these many years, my medium has mostly been print and wire, and on occasions, broadcast, via ABS-CBN's Balitang America in California.

The dawning of the digital revolution towards the end of the millennium and the beginning of another necessitated the inexorable leap to online journalism.

Print still appeals to me except that the costs and infrastructure to carry it out have become financially prohibitive. Besides, I do not have the means to start the paper from scratch again.

I had intended to continue publishing my flagship paper in San Diego, California – the Philippine Village Voice – in Toronto but the local community is saturated with about a dozen identical-looking tabloids in cutthroat rivalry over a shrinking revenue-making pie, thus triggering a buyer's market in advertising.

I could still find a niche for my paper despite that huge number and compete head-on. Mine would simply stay out of the repetitive coverage of the same events by the same people and focus on the nitty-gritty of community news.

I had that thought for a while. Then one day in November, I decided I needed one dedicated channel for purely Filipino-oriented stories. That's when The Filipino Web Channel was born. (To see launching videos, click the link: ">

 and ">).

My other outlet – The Gotcha Journalist Channel for Currents & Breaking News – was designed for mainstream reporting, though in some instances, it also covered community events.

Delineating the roles of each was important for my perspective. Just as significant is to pinpoint the market of potential viewers on which to direct the stories.

The treatment of news differs in The Filipino Web Channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/FilipinoWebChannel) and in The Gotcha Journalist Channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/TheGotchaJournalist) though it would seem they're treading on the same path.

Early this month, my coverage paid off handsomely in terms of the number of viewers.

Although it's far from the dizzying heights reached by the video of Filipino singing talent Maria Aragon (performing Lady Gaga's Born This Way at home), my coverage of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney also zoomed past ordinary expectations.

Entitled "Jason Kenney - Canada's 'King of Multiculturalism'," the video promptly registered viewers in the four digits (as of this writing, a total of 2,249) and landing on You Tube's "hot spots", meaning grabbing full attention above the average. That's a hit in my estimation, considering that my videos average less than a thousand viewers over a certain period of time.

But it isn't that video milestone that I'm most happy about. Rather, it's the breakthrough that that particular news video has achieved, which is that the giant and dominant internet portal, America Online (AOL), has snared it and is now listed among its popularly-viewed videos.

In fact, at least four of my videos from my two channels are in included in the AOL video index, including: http://video.aol.ca/video-detail/canadas-visible-minorities-proclaim-jason-kenney-king-of-multiculturalism/2012460451/?icid=VIDURVNWS07

The significance of this milestone is in what it does not say categorically -- that is, that my videos have managed to penetrate the mainstream media. That's something to crow about. And I am humbled by it.

Since I began The Filipino Web Channel in November, I've uploaded a total of 42 videos. Channel viewers are nearing the thousand mark while upload viewers totaled at least 10,337 as of this writing.

On the other hand, The Gotcha Journalist Channel, which I launched in mid-June last year and has 72 videos already, is attracting its own set of followers. It has notched a total of 1,401 channel viewers and 23,825 upload viewers.

In the years that I published three modest community newspapers in San Diego, I've never felt such a huge impact as the news videos have created in only a few months.

It must be because of the instant availability of the videos and the fact that the news stories are brought fresh at the click of a button. That can't be said of newspapers or magazines which  must use extensive colors to bring some life into them.

Still, whatever the medium – print, broadcast, online – good old journalism by committed journalists is here to stay. No, not the so-called "churnalism" or "envelopmental journalism" by the "pinabili-ng-suka" types (also referred to as PNS practitioners). # # #

(© Copyright by Romeo P. Marquez, Editor, Philippine Village Voice, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. E-mail: TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail.com, PhilVoiceNews@aol.com or CurrentsBreakingNews@gmail.com).

My news channels can be viewed by clicking the links:

At Vimeo:

1. http://vimeo.com/16962555

2. http://vimeo.com/user4144767

For other stories, please visit: 

1. http://currentsbreakingnews.blogspot.com/ 

2. http://torontonewsroom.blogspot.com/

3. http://timecircumstance.blogspot.com/

4. http://travelsthemes.blogspot.com/ 

5. http://gotchajournalist.blogspot.com/ .