MANILA, Philippines — INQUIRER.net officially launched the Inquirer Volunteer (IV) program which aims to get registered voters involved in the coverage and reporting of the upcoming national elections.
Initial volunteers for the program included registered voters from Metro Manila, North Luzon, Cebu, and Davao. The volunteers officially got onboard for the program on Saturday, February 5.
The Inquirer Volunteers and trainees were all smiles during the onboarding session held via Zoom on Saturday, February 5.
The volunteer program is open to students, working professionals, and freelance journalists who will be conducting digital news gathering, will produce, publish, and tell their own stories on the Inquirer website using multimedia formats. Their stories will appear mainly on INQUIRER.net’s social media platforms.
Prior to their coverage assignments, the volunteers were screened and trained by the INQUIRER.net team on topics such as basic news writing, social media guidelines, as well as on the editorial standards of the Inquirer, including rules on accuracy, ethics, and copyright.
The batch of volunteers, who signed up for the Inquirer Volunteer program, are ready to cover the 2022 elections.
Volunteers include students of various universities, journalists, and working professionals of various ages. Volunteers will receive an Inquirer Volunteer kit along with a digital certificate as proof of their participation in the volunteer program.
During the onboarding session, INQUIRER.net had a look into the motivation of the volunteers for reaching out and joining the program.
Reasons given by the volunteers for joining the program vary from wanting to be beacons of truth and being concerned about fake news – especially with the upcoming elections. Some also expressed a desire to hone their journalism skills with the help of Inquirer’s training.
After getting to know each volunteer, INQUIRER.net Editor-in-Chief Abel Ulanday, and INQUIRER.net Managing Editor Dennis Maliwanag discussed the company’s editorial policies, which include the observance of accuracy, immediacy, balance, and fairness when it comes to reporting.
The two editors also highlighted the importance of fact-checking news and social media posts and gave volunteers tips on how detect fake media quickly.
INQUIRER.net Social Media Manager Ralph Gurango also gave tips on how volunteers will be coordinating with the INQUIRER.net team for their news scoops and on the elections coverage. The session ended with closing remarks from INQUIRER.net’s operations head Imee Alcantara, with the message of looking forward to sustaining the program even after the coverage of the national elections has ended.
For interested volunteers, kindly sign up and submit a copy of your résumé and portfolio here.
Follow @INQVolunteers on Twitter for more updates.