Philippine newsrooms got smaller and the deadline became now

A Philippine business desk that had six reporters five years ago has three, and those three are filing for the site, the newsletter and two social accounts. Nothing about that is unique to Manila. What is local is how fast the resulting story travels and how completely the first version sets every version after it.

The release is not the unit any more

A press release assumes somebody has time to read it, extract the story and call for the missing piece. That assumption is where most programmes in this market now fail. The reporter has the time to publish what arrived complete, and to skip what did not.

Complete means the figure, the comparison, the quote already cleared, and a named person reachable in the next thirty minutes. Not more material — less, finished.

What we changed

• Fewer approaches, each carrying an actual finding. Volume is what taught desks to filter agency mail in the first place.
• Spokespeople cleared to speak before the story exists, not after it breaks.
• A named human on a phone that is answered, published to the desks that cover the client.
• Everything a desk needs attached on first contact — chart, figures, the comparison, the quote.

— M2.0 Communications, Manila

The measure that moved was not volume of coverage. It was the share of coverage carrying our client's position in the original article rather than in a correction nobody reads.