The Manila Standard, round the clock redefined and redesigned, is different nowadays, rustling both in print and online, but modestly much the same.
Tomorrow, the erstwhile tallboy edition, which has morphed to a broadsheet carrier of important issues at home and abroad, will mark its 37th anniversary, rolling off stone on Feb 11, 1987, fresh on the heels of what is now described as the Mendiola massacre – a confrontation between farmers rallying for and reform and in protest against President Corazon Aquino which ended in a shooting: 13 killed and 74 more injured.
Readers had a first glimpse of the tall-man size newspaper – loosely, if immodestly, translated as “great in vertical dimension and high in stature” – nine days after a newly ratified Constitution was promulgated.
As in that initial year when the Manila Standard, beyond defining the news, underscored the future of competition in the discerning, if tasteful, print industry followed by an opinionated and well-informed public, the broadsheet continues to compete for the news and information as well as advertising pies.
The Manila Standard, for its part, has struggled – and has survived three backbreaking decades, despite numerous challenges, including the onslaught of technology, and some changes in ownership and names – like Manila Standard Today and The Standard.
Through the years, thanks in large part to the people who literally manned the fort 24/7, the Manila Standard earned credit for its Xcellence, Xperience, and Xcitement – attributes that have defined and continue to define the newspaper alongside its redesigned pages as well as up-to-the-minute and essential content.
The founders of the Manila Standard created the publication in the belief there was room for a newspaper “that seeks to present facts…to serve as an intellectual forum for ideas, whether clashing or complimentary, to test the limits of investigative reporting.”
Its maiden editorial was precise in the newspaper’s mission: “To stand firm in the face of sly machinations of power brokers; to offer nuggets from the arts, which are necessary if we are to live as sensitive human beings; to tell the stories of the little day-to-day heroisms that, minus the benefits of publicity mills, go sadly unnoticed and unmarked.”
That has not been lost on the present staff – the editorial, the administration, the circulation, the human resources division, the advertising, finance and accounting, and the printing – who continue unrelenting in waving their passion for the competitive product.
|And the staff, rising to the challenge of the next decade, remain grateful to their elders who blazed a trail in column inches for them in the newsroom in an earlier punishing clime.
But they remain committed to the newspaper’s mission “to be a vital link in the struggle for change…evolve into a truly unfettered, intelligent – and therefore responsible – press, cognizant of and vigilant against the pitfalls that litter the road toward freedom and justice.”