October 7, 2011. This milestone date has special significance not only to PWD founders and staff members, but also to the Fil-Am community that it serves because the birth of this fortnightly newspaper has ushered in a new paradigm in community journalism with its fearless reporting and editorial style.
PinoyWatchDog.com went through a baptism of fire unlike any other Fil-Am community newspaper. From the get-go, we always felt that PWD would fly, soar, and tickle the imagination of a Fil-Am community long inured to the usual passel of publications with similar canned and recycled stories week in and week out from the same sources in the motherland and passed as useable information. When PWD entered the fray with a truly revolutionary journalistic approach based on a mantra of “no censorship” and only original stories this newspaper gradually gained adherents, as well as detractors for our tell-it-like-it-is brand of writing and reporting. The community began paying notice. But these innovations are not enough to merit PWD with high praises. What we think we deserve kudos for are the changes for the better that we were able to achieve in the course of our one year’s existence. We now have a community strengthened with the threat of ‘if you do that I will tell PinoyWatchDog.com’.
The first issue of this newspaper trumpeted the filing of a malpractice suit versus a Los Angeles lawyer that shocked the community for its audacity and originality. That investigative story was the first warning shot unleashed by PinoyWatchDog.com that as a public service organization it will not tolerate incompetence, dishonesty and other shenanigans from those who are sworn to serve Filipino-American consumers. That expose against this lawyer and its supporting newspaper organization was followed by many other investigation-based dispatches coming directly from reports from the community itself, including illegal and abusive practices being fostered on the unknowing and naïve community members, some weakened by undocumented status.
These PWD investigative pieces have resulted in the early retirement of a prominent bankruptcy and immigration lawyer and has served as a warning that others who are of the same ilk would not be tolerated to continue their nefarious practices and victimize members of the Fil-Am community again. These exposes have served notice, and the guilty ones paid attention. A majority of the readership believe that PWD “is controversial but it’s also a necessity.” Notwithstanding a campaign of “hate” that Darna Umayam and her water carriers have fostered against PWD we are proud that we continue to flourish and to attract supporters, as well as advertisers, who value transparency and honesty in reporting. Our growing acceptance by a list of independent-minded advertisers only proves that no amount of bad-mouthing by our detractors would dissuade them from advertising in PinoyWatchDog.com.
And it demonstrates that at our core Filipinos are good, right-minded people that just have to work a little harder to ferret out the evil that is among us.
This summer PinoyWatchDog.com scored a coup when it broke the numerous fundraising irregularities associated with the Philippine Children’s Charities, Inc. of Darna Umayam, who stole her PCCI non-profit organization from under the very nose of the Philippine Consulate General, which created and incorporated it for the benefit of the annual Philippine Independence Day celebrations. The irregularities would not have surfaced and found its way into this newspaper had it not for the incessant and unrelenting investigation by PWD. That dogged investigative style had produced for us our most widely-read series of reportage since we hit the streets one year ago.
With the magic of the internet Pinoys worldwide hungering for genuine and original reporting, opinion and commentaries have been logging in regularly, and extensively. Through a tracking and analyzing program provided by Google, PWD is able to determine the volume of hits and the points of the globe where the hits are coming from and sometimes it is astounding. Thanks to all Pinoys worldwide.
In our inaugural issue, we wrote in the editorial that PWD is the keeper of the metaphorical dog, a well-endowed watchdog, and today, one year after that historic first issue, we are proud to say that we have stuck to our original mission statement, which is to print every piece of real news without regards of who gets hurt. We stand by our stories, and we back them up with the essential documents and testimonies, then we go forward and publish them. There has never been a valid contention that anything we have printed is false. We acknowledge the compliments for having balanced reporting on sensitive issues.
PinoyWatchDog.com remains to be the only Fil-Community newspaper in Southern California that publishes all the news that’s fit to print. But we are proud that we have effected change in the Fil-Am community, its members, civic and community leaders, and other stakeholders by encouraging transparency, truthfulness and editorial independence. With that in mind, we look forward to more years of untrammeled service to the Fil-Am community in the region where we publish.
And if you know of wrongdoing out there, please let us know. PinoyWatchDog.com is here for you.
Posted by PWD
on October 13, 2012. Filed under EDITORIAL,IN THE NEWS,OPINION.
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