DG editor-in-chief joins int’l journalism exchange and fellowship programs

Daily Guardian editor-in-chief Francis Allan L. Angelo will join two major international media development programs sponsored by the US and Swedish governments.

Angelo is bound for Washington DC, USA for the International Visitor Leadership Program on “Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists: Media Responsibility in an Age of Disinformation for the Indo-Pacific” hosted by the US State Department on October 29 to November 19, 2022.

He is the lone Filipino representative nominated by the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines for this particular program.

The “Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists: Media Responsibility in an Age of Disinformation for the Indo-Pacific” will highlight the importance of investigative journalism, fact-checking, and myth-busting in countering misleading information and demonstrating the serious impact of disinformation campaigns on the public.

The program was named after American broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow who gained prominence in his confrontations with Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.

McCarthy initiated the early version of red-tagging or publicly making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism.

Murrow’s exposés on misinformation being disseminated by McCarthy led to the Senate censuring the latter.

This episode also made Murrow “an icon of journalistic independence, which has inspired other journalists to perpetuate First Amendment rights of free expression.” (https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1279/edward-murrow)

Program participants will fly to the US to examine strategies designed to encourage greater public awareness of the phenomenon of disinformation. They will explore the role of government agencies, NGOs, academia, and traditional and social media in the fight against the proliferation of deceptive media and the dissemination of disinformation. This project will include a workshop on countering disinformation.

The project objectives include:

-efforts at the federal, state, and local levels to counter the dissemination of disinformation and misleading reporting;

-Introduce and provide broad exposure to the serious impact of the current threat posed by disinformation and deceptive news;

-Explore ways to verify reliable sources of information and counter misinformation;

-Discuss how social media and new technologies can be utilized to amplify messages, disseminate information and connect with a target audience;

-Consider ways to foster a discerning audience of media consumers; and

-Focus on approaches to build trust between the media, government and citizens.

The 3-week program begins in Washington DC from Oct 29 to Nov 4, 2022 before moving to Atlanta, Georgia on Nov 4-10, 2022.

The rest of the program will be in Florida from Nov 10-19.

Angelo will join other participants from Australia, Cambodia, Fiji, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam.

ITP MEDIA ASIA 2022

Angelo was also accepted to the International Training Programme on Media Development in a Democratic Framework – ITP Media Asia 2022 sponsored by the Swedish Government and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

This ITP is a fellowship program that provides a forum for constructive, creative dialogue between high-level representatives from media, government and civil society on how to improve self-regulatory and regulatory frameworks for media.

This year’s fellowship is anchored to tectonic shifts in the global and local media landscapes.

Across the globe, recent political, technological and economic changes have placed increased restraints on media freedom while at the same time, the prevalence of “fake news” is on the rise.

As a result, there is an urgent need to find new ways to reform media policy and regulate the sector.

Civil society and citizens around the world are demanding trustworthy news and accurate reporting, providing them with the information needed to make informed decisions, a prerequisite for a functioning democracy.

Regulation, self-regulation and co-regulation of media are a means to that end.

Media has the ability to enable greater participation in public life, hold the powerful to account, and can serve as platforms for dialogue and the protection of individual rights.

But if media is to fulfil its potential role effectively, updated regulatory frameworks need to be in place and adapted to the new media landscape.

Sida has commissioned NIRAS Sweden AB to organize this ITP in cooperation with International Media Support (IMS), Fojo Media Institute/Linnaeus University, and Global Reporting Sweden AB.

Governments, media and civil society organizations can nominate participants. Reaching a critical mass of stakeholders in each participating country will be particularly important for institutional change and thus long-term impact.

There are currently five editions of this program targeting different geographical areas: Southern/Eastern Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe); Latin America (Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras); Asia (Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Philippines and Vietnam); Eastern Europe (Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine); and MENA (Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia).

The training program is approximately 12 months long and runs from September 2022 to October 2023.

The training includes a 10-day training in Manila and another 13-day training in Sweden, all of which Mr. Angelo will personally join

Mr. Angelo has been a journalist for Daily Guardian for 20 years, starting as a field reporter until he landed the top editorial job.

The Philippine Press Institute, the country’s oldest professional media organization, recognized the Daily Guardian for its economic and business reporting in 2020 and for migration issues reporting in 2021.

Mr. Angelo spearheaded the Daily Guardian’s series on Iloilo’s electricity supply problems between 2005 and 2010, which exposed the city’s poor performance in business competitiveness surveys due to a lack of stable and competitive power supply.

He is a member of the Iloilo Press Club, of which he served as president in 2013 and 2014, and of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines.

He is also a fellow with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, through which he regularly attends and conducts trainings on reporting on local governments, elections and campaign finance, and public sector projects.

He is also at the helm of the Iloilo Community-Press Council which aims to professionalize the media sector and provide links with the broader community on various issues on press freedom and ethics.

Mr. Angelo is also strongly involved in community development, having served as president of the Rotary Club of Iloilo from 2021-2022.