Jacque Manabat, senior multi-platform journalist of ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs, was the guest speaker in a webinar on Mobile Journalism for Covering Elections held as part of the Department of Development Journalism Seminar Series on May 2 via Zoom.
Manabat’s beats are on transportation, travel, consumers, and the economy. She has also covered disasters. Among the notable events she covered for Philippine News were the Berlyn terror attack in December 2016 and the Hong Kong protest last August 2019. She is adept at doing live reports, mobile journalism, and video editing. Manabat has a BAin Mass Communication from Saint Louis University. She also attended a Data Investigative Journalism internship under the Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung in Berlin, Germany. She is currently pursuing her MA in Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU).
She shared practical tips about mobile journalism, which is just one of the many ways of practicing journalism and which is a part of the many tasks that journalists nowadays are expected to perform by the media industry.
She also discussed the many benefits of mobile journalism, such as affordability, practicality, and portability. It allows much room for creativity with the many apps and features available now in smartphones.
“Ang gusto kasi ng tao they want something revealed, gusto nila ng storytelling. Ayon yung heart ng journalism, yung dinadala mo sila sa isang lugar na di nila nakikita pero they feel they’re there,” she said.
(People want something revealed, they want storytelling. That is the heart of journalism, when you take them to a place that they have never seen before, but they feel they’re there.)
She then called on the participants to use mobile journalism to push for clean and honest 2022 Philippine Elections.
In her welcome remarks, Asst. Prof. Aletheia C. Araneta, DDJ Chair and representative of Dean Maria Stella C. Tirol, highlighted how crucial the role of the journalists are in the coming elections amid a disinformation crisis. She also emphasized the importance of technology and how it has made news and information available literally at our fingertips.
In her closing remarks, Hanah Lee Tabios, one of the lecturers of DDJ, thanked Manabat, whom she had gotten to work with as a journalist at Manila Bulletin when they were covering the transport beat.
The webinar was attended by over 100 participants from state universities and colleges all over the country. (Samantha Gwyneth Bonsol)
