L-R: JJ Disini, Rachel Khan, Luz Rimban, and Janette Toral were among the speakers in the recent “iBlog: Blogging and 2010 Elections” forum.

Pinoy bloggers can do so much to fill the gaps of reportage for the 2010 elections and give voters a better picture of the voting process.

“We’ve seen how bloggers have played a role in the coverage of the national elections in the US and in Australia. We hope to see that in our country too–more bloggers at the grassroots level, whether in Metro Manila or in the provinces, as long as there’s Internet connection,” says Atty. JJ Disini of the UP Internet and Society Program, which recently organized the “Blogging and the 2010 Elections” forum.

With some 50 million Filipinos expected to be online in 2010 and laptops and mobile phones becoming more affordable, Pinoys will be getting their news from the Web, says Janette Toral of Digital Filipino, a co-organizer of the forum.

Bloggers can help the Pinoy voters decide wisely by providing more in-depth, especially firsthand, information about the national and local elections and by discussing and comparing candidates’ platforms, going beyond motherhood statements, Toral explains.

The advantage of bloggers is that they can do away with the journalistic trap of news values, observes Rachel Khan, chair of the UP Journalism Department. “If TV doesn’t want to use a story because of censorship, bloggers have the courage to put it up there.”

For bloggers to be prepared for 2010, they need to study how the media covered previous elections.

In the 2004 elections, information on the local and party-list developments was scarce and little was said about policy development, says Luz Rimban, special projects director at the Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism, citing a report by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.
Photo credit: Dennis Rito
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