Newsroom queens lob protest
across the Pacific against
travelling colleague over
conflated title (again)
The Advent's festive atmosphere over at the Philippine Star was rudely interrupted at the beginning of the week, when the newsroom got hold of a digital copy of a story published by the Helena Independent Record, all the way from Montana.
The US newspaper had reported about the visit to the state capital of four Filipinos, sponsored by the US State Department "as part of a tour (across the United States) to combat disinformation."
The four were Franklin Drilon-staffer Jeeno Arellano, Manila Councilor Timothy Oliver Zarcal, Ronwald Munsayac of Senator Koko Pimentel's office, and another from Philstar.com, who was identified as "editor in chief" of the "Philippine Star."
This conflation of title and role naturally raised hackles inside the Philippine Star, since the real editor-in-chief, Amy Pamintuan, was all along slaving in the cramped, leaky Port Area newsroom, not crisscrossing the length and breadth of the US of A.
After consultations with the female-dominated newsdesk, an "angry" letter was promptly fired off, the result of which the US newspaper promptly rectified its report, saying the Filipina visitor was instead the "editor-in-chief" of Philstar.com. (Philstar.com on its website says her title is "editor").
Apparently, this was not the first time that titles and roles in Philstar.com have been conflated with those of the Philippine Star, the newspaper, to the annoyance and even political trouble for the print side of what was supposed to be an integrated business.
Like the Philippine Daily Inquirer and its website, the Star and its web operations are for still unclear reasons two distinct companies with two different sets of personnel, with editors who have not met each other, holding separate offices miles apart.
And like the PDI set-up, both the Star and the Inquirer - despite being derided as dinosaurs - are actually still the cash cows generating business for, even subsidizing the operations of, their "free" websites.
On a management level, this splintering of essentially the same business, each ruled by a Belmonte sibling with the PLDT Group as the common majority owner, has given rise to what economists politely call a principal-agent problem, a situation that Money-Go-Round has no incentive nor inclination to elaborate in this small, beso-beso town.
And the political trouble that we had earlier adverted to?
That referred to the alleged pronounced Leni bias of Philstar.com during the presidential campaign - the Facebook posts of the Philstar.com editor fortunately/unfortunately attests to this Pinklawan orientation - that the Philippine Star editors have had to endure.
But that as they say is another (longer) story.
PHOTO: The real editor-in-chief of the Philippine Star, Ana Marie Pamintuan
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