H
JO-ANN Q. MAGLIPON, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
New Year 2024, and here we are again in a meet-and-greet.
This is what we set out to do when we began PEP OUTTAKES in June 2023: We wanted our readers to get to know us, and, by their feedback, for us to get to know them.
We wanted a channel where The PEP Team could strip layers off its primness. The primness was a given, admittedly. The rules of reporting shroud reporters with necessary, and often-useful, decorum. But it is starchy. Just look at the thick Code of Ethics that comes with these reporting rules, a Code set in stone, and you see why the primness.
Not that we had any intention of violating the Code. Unthinkable. But, yes, we wanted to venture beyond our safe zone—of news, features, investigative reports, profiles, listicles—and to navigate the fraught territory of opinions.
This is a whole different world.
In the 17 years of the Philippine Entertainment Portal, up until mid-2023, PEP.ph has stuck to reportage, its strength. Only occasionally has it put out commentary, which never became its favorite thing to do, possibly because everything is already incendiary in showbiz and throwing in our opinion is flat-out adding fuel to the fire.
And so, its writers—sticking only to the facts before them and putting out only what interview subjects say about a controversy—have disciplined themselves to keep both assent and incredulity, it doesn't matter, to themselves.
Now, they were being asked to face their audience in a world that is not only different, it is intimidating.
Opinion requires ego.
We have to believe we have something to say. We cannot be asking all the parties' permission to speak. We assert our point of view. Who's going to believe comment that sounds tentative?
But, we also know, we could be overreaching here.
Suddenly, we must shed our inhibitions. We can't make language and correctness our paramount concern; it's our ideas under the spotlight here, not to mention under scrutiny. We're expected to articulate our beliefs. We must comment and comment clearly. We cannot keep churning phrases like "on the other hand" and "for his part." We have to make the call.
In so doing, we risk offending someone or even many. Opinions polarize.
This is us revealing ourselves. This is us making our biases known. This is us making ourselves vulnerable.
If that is overreaching, so be it.
We plunged into it. We wanted our readers to get to know us, this was the way to go.
From June 26 to December 30, 2023, we published 24 opinion pieces. One piece could be a mix of opinions from several writers and editors about a common subject; another could be a solo piece. Pieces could be long, short; most turned out serious and direct; and some went with levity and irreverence. We kept it loose.
The opinions generated 100,000 pageviews.
Google Analytics tells us that, of the 24, the Top 5 PEP OUTTAKES FOR 2023 are:
1. KathNiel confirmation of their breakup (Nov. 30)
2. Robin Padilla's manhood accidentally making an appearance (Sept. 27)
3. What PEP thinks of It's Showtime being slapped with a violation by MTRCB (Aug. 7)
4. What PEP thinks of Lea Salonga's viral dressing-room encounter (July 21)
5. How Ronaldo Valdez's death talks to us of the need for respect and compassion (Dec. 24)
Since PEP.ph has a presence in Facebook, we add to this these numbers: The 24 opinion pieces had an average engagement per post of 800. And of the 24, the MTRCB-It's Showtime issue recorded the highest total engagement at 8,200.
All these figures are as of December 30. Today, the last day of 2023, we've added two more, the figures for which aren't available yet.
I remember how one day, almost by accident, we gave PEP OUTTAKES a video life.
We were sitting around the office trying to decide what subject to tackle, when we saw that we were all already gathered and in the mood to talk. So, why not record ourselves? Why not see if we can have enough for a video? Rommel, our self-taught video guy, held the camera.
Thus began our PEP OUTTAKES videos.
By December 30, we had produced seven. These videos garnered a total of 236,000 views. On YouTube, the engagement per post was 100; with the highest, at 333 comments, going to the issue of Lea Salonga's fan intruding or not intruding into the performer's private space.
Note that it was our deliberate choice to limit our opinion videos. We could certainly have done 24 to match our article churn. But we remained at seven because the editing involved, with its tech, visual, and copyright requirements, just took too many manhours out of Rommel.
The fellow was also working on PEP Exclusives, PEP Spotlight, PEP Live, and PEP Live Choice Cuts; PEP Interviews from presscons, PEP Hot Story from events, and PEP Goes To from real-time uploads.
PEP OUTTAKES, where one video sometimes took two days to produce, had to take a back seat. What looked fun, easy, and natural was actually more labor intensive.
What's important to note is that, whether as article or as video, PEP OUTTAKES did provide a channel for the team to shed off inhibitions. Our writers and editors came right out and said what they wanted. They owned their views. They risked alienating stars; they risked alienating readers. They went out on a limb.
Many times, even to me, their views were a revelation.
I thought, though, that they tended to be too harsh on guys involved in breakups, and that their natural bent was to take the side of the girl. (Frankly, I think the very situation is to blame. How expect people in their 20s and 30s to commit to a lifetime of fidelity and love? So much more drama will happen in their lifetimes!)
In cases where religion was involved, such as when an artist used the image of God as material, they tended to go with convention, akin to cities declaring the artist persona non grata. (I may not like the art at all, but I leave room for iconoclastic views. Otherwise, how does society push against boundaries?)
In the case of Lea Salonga, they thought she owed the public nothing more than a good performance. (Personally, I thought it wouldn't hurt an international star to put a little softness in her voice and a little mellow in her sentences so she didn't sound so imperious.)
But to my mind, there were real gems. Like our Social Media Manager Chino Buenaventura's: "In social media, why is kindness so hard to come by?" (July 24)
Point after point, I was just floored reading it.
One, on Pokwang: "While I think she may have gone too far by fighting crassness with crassness—via the comment section—I also believe she always had more to lose in this fight than any of the women picking on her. Her bashers don't really lose a thing. They don’t even reveal themselves, so no one can get to them. They risk nothing."
Two, of the culture: "This is a netizens' chance to feel equal, even superior, to people better known and far richer. And because netizens can hide behind false identities, they find it terribly easy to put out opinions that are downright personal attacks!"
Three, as social media fellow: "I see these hateful comments every day. Trust me, it's not a pretty way to start or end one's day. It can make us think people aren't worth it and can turn us less nice ourselves."
Just three of many points that hit you in the gut, particularly because this is a young man, single, comfortable, without big cares in the world, but who was first to tell me he wanted to put in his place a seemingly decent family man—he posed smiling with his kids, for heaven's sake—who left gross and greasy comments about young buxomy girls.
I found Chino's sensitivity touching. With people like him, this team is good.
To our readers—get to know us stripped of some of that decorum, see if you like us when we speak as we are.
Thank you for 2023! May we all have a bountiful 2024!
