The Modern Media with INQ
The Philippine Daily Inquirer was born on the year 1985. An estimate of 12 years later, on October 27, 1997, the Philippine Daily Inquirer enters the digital realm for the first time. Therefore, in the whole existence of Inquirer, 2/3 of it is actually set in the Internet Era.
It was during the dawn of the Internet when newspapers began to put up a websites - The Inquirer being one of the first. The programming for Inquirer's site was very basic, they would only post the top 5 latest news of each section. This posting was done manually through hand-coded HTML. However, after time flied by, the Inquirer team - including Mr. Rufino - realized that to further grow their website, they would need to publish not just once a day but update the news on a 24/7 patrol. Rufino terms this as "broadcast mentality".
The next step of PDI was partnering up with GMA-7 network in the year 2000. This was to collude and become INQ7 as they both venture in the digital age. INQ7 combined the television resources of GMA and INQ's web operations.
We interviewed Mr. Rufino to show us how the Philippine Daily Inquirer conquered the digital media.
How did INQUIRER address the digital age?
The Philippine Daily Inquirer thrives in this digital age by adapting to this ever-changing environment.
They've developed their organization by expanding it to become a multimedia platform for news. They reach out to their audience in both traditional and digital means. When the Internet first sprang up, Inquirer immediately set their several different social media platforms despite not understanding how they work. They did this in order to establish themselves in this newly-found realm.
In terms of digital means, they've adapted by expanding to both minor and major social platforms ranging from Facebook, Twitter, Viber, KakaoTalk, and so on.
For the business aspect of adapting to the digital age, Inquirer used the technique of twin-transformation. Through this they remodel the former and traditional Inquirer to be equipped for a digital reality and venture forth to generate new revenue. Inquirer was divided into 2 teams - the traditional and digital - with opposite directions. However, they continue to work and grow together side-by-side.
"Preserve, then grow."
With having to balance both the newspaper and the website of the Inquirer, they soon decided to hire a whole new team of reporters just for the digital platform due to the challenges they faced. While trying to maintain the two platforms, Inquirer found that their print reporters could not handle filing their articles on a real-time basis and GMA was only willing to offer money as support and not their reporters or journalists.
Inquirer's next milestone in this transition was when they created and tested the prototype version of live blogging - the "running account". They first tried this method on Estrada's impeachment trial in order to compensate to the lack of time. This attempt to deliver news better and more efficiently is what sky-rocketed INQ7's growth as the top website in the Philippines.
In 2007 was when Inquirer broke off from INQ7 to establish their independence and rebuild their own site and branding. It was in this time when the media began to realize that the Internet was no longer a hobby but a new professional domain.
Inquirer.net was revived during the late 2007 to early 2008 and fully functionally during election period. Rufino devised a plan to tell their audiences about this by producing the very first podcast on politicians. This proved to be a very successful medium.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer's
1st Printed Issue -12.09.85-
INQUIRER'S TRANSITION INTO THE DIGI-SPHERE
ESTABLISHING THE DAILY INQUIRER IN THE DIGITAL DOMAIN
Finally established in the digital sphere, the next action Inquirer needed to do was to expand themselves in that domain an further their establishments.
Twitter became their next success after utilizing it to broadcast Cory Aquino's funeral in 2009 through live tweeting. They came up with this means since the reporters had agreed that the signal would be too weak at the venue for a live blogging. However, one of of the team members suggests to tweet the event as it happens since it didn't demand too much for digital publishing.
Inquirer had set up their RSS or Twitter account in 2007 even though they had no idea on how to use it. The same situation applied when Facebook sprung up and began to be acknowledged as social media platform.
However, similar to before, even though the Inquirer team were unsure on what to do with these accounts or what Facebook could become, Rufino states that they thought it would be best to at least establish themselves there already. This was to assure there would be no fraud accounts or impersonators.
As of today, The Philippine Daily Inquirer has eminently established themselves in manifold digital platforms that include mobile messaging apps. Rufino also declared that their Facebook page - with 3 miliion followers - would on most given days, be the top 3 or 4 for the Philippine new sites.
On the other hand, for verification statuses on Twitter, Philippine Daily Inquirer has 3 of their accounts verified. The first being the main one: Inquirer.net. This is followed by subcategories Inquirer Sports and INQ Enterntainment.
