• Ikaw ra may nangita anang Vitalis, Dong. (You’re the only one who asked about Vitalis)
    On the trail of St. Vitalis of Milan, I found myself at this stall selling religious images behind the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral. St. Vitalis was an early Christian martyr described by some as apocryphal but who was designated the patron saint of Cebu City or the old Ciudad de Cebu or the Villa San Miguel […]
  • Algorithmic clustering and radicalization on socmed
  • Bring your own kabaw, old Cebu City PIO FB page mocks Mayor Rama’s Sinulog at SRP
    Cebu Updates, the current iteration of what used to be the Cebu City Public Information Office (PIO) Facebook page, mocked the decision by Mayor Michael Rama’s administration to hold the Sinulog grand parade at the South Road Properties.
  • Sad batchoy
    The only flavor in the thing I am loathe to call batchoy was provided by the small packet of McCormick ground black pepper that came with the bowl. I don’t use condiments with batchoy, I enjoy them as they are – a flavorful mix of chicken stock, miki noodles, pork strips and offal topped with […]
  • Technology is just a tool: artist on AI art
    Technology is neutral, it’s how we use it, artist Jan Leeroy New told Cebu bloggers at the sidelines of the Cebu leg of the 55th Pilipinas Shell’s National Student Arts Competition (NSAC) Art Interact event held at the Kabilin Center of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc.
  • How do you make AI say “Cebu?”
    A key problem with using text to speech (TTS) services like Amazon Polly is the foreign accent it renders certain words. One such word is Cebu, which systems often pronounce as “say bu.”
  • Sun.Star Cebu’s Facebook page scrapes bottom with Kim’s behind
    Do newsrooms still have publication standards apart from engagement? Apparently not the Sun.Star Cebu Facebook page, judging by its recent posts. There is a noticeable shift by the page to the prurient.
  • Churnalism, bad reporting pull scandal out of comment thread
    The accusation published by Manila Bulletin that singer Moira dela Torre was paid P5 million to perform at a Leni-Kiko campaign rally is an example of what journalist Nick Davies described in his book Flat Earth News as “churnalism.” It is described in the book Breaking News by Alan Rusbridger as “reporters with too little […]
  • How not to write a news story: Manila Bulletin and “online marites” as source
    A recent story by Manila Bulletin illustrates the inanities of traffic whoring by the rewriting-social-media-posts beat. The story amplified a serious accusation – that the artist Moira dela Torre was paid a “whooping” (the amount does trigger a fit of coughing) P5 million for her performance in the Robredo-Pangilinan campaign in Zamboanga City. But throughout […]
  • Google searches “accurate predictors” of presidential election results, researchers say
    Google Trends predicted the winners of the past two presidential elections in the Philippines. Except for former President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020, Google Trends predicted the winners of the previous four presidential elections in the United States and the past six in Canada since the company’s search data were made available in 2004.
  • Armchair journalism
    Miffed at being criticized over a news coverage, a reporter once juxtaposed his “real journalism” of being out on the field with “armchair journalism.” The attempted put-down betrays a dated outlook on journalism, one that’s stuck in a different era. It is the journalism romanticized by the 1976 film All The President’s Men. For the […]