Sun.Star Pampanga

Submitted by:

Macas, Trish

Siy, Angelo

Tagle, Gayle

A51 INTPRIN

July 9, 2008

Name of Newspaper: Sun.Star Pampanga

Corporate Name: Sun.Star Publishing Inc.,

Editorial/Business Address: Tita’s Commercial Bldg. II, JASA, City of San Fernando, Pampanga

Telephone number(s): (045) 860 0517/ 9616741

Official Website: http://www2.sunstar.com.ph/pampanga/

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/pampanga/ is the officially listed website, but is actually an invalid hostname.

The newspaper Sun.Star Pampanga is headed by Narciso C. Sula, Jr., the general manager, and Abelardo A. Malig, Jr., the editor-in-chief. The managing editor is basically on top of the managing editorial staff personnel, and they do not have any executive editor. The newspaper media is not really part of the government; therefore, it does not have any official government-guaranteed benefits for their employees. Although the newspaper does not receive any official benefits from the government, being a form of media provides benefits as it gains connections to government workers and officials. These benefits may be in the form of bonuses or money from government officials to the media men as a return favor for perhaps writing a good article about them, thus making this benefit as an “under the table” deal. The total number of journalists for Sun.Star Pampanga is twenty-six (26) which are comprised of twenty-two (22) reporters and the four (4) correspondents. Since Sun.Star Pampanga is part of a big nationwide network, it has guest columnists from other Sun.Star papers. But in Pampanga alone, there are ten (10) columnists.

Sun.Star Publishing Inc. was started in Cebu during the 1980s, therefore making Sun.Star Cebu the first among all the local Sun.Star around our country. It was founded by Mr. Jesus Garcia, who was also the transportation secretary of former president Fidel V. Ramos. At first, Mr. Garcia planned to make it into a national broadsheet, but other major national daily broadsheets have already penetrated the market at that time, such as the Philippine Daily Inquirer. So instead, he decided to make it into a locally thrust newspaper which targets the local people of the area, and all Sun.Star branches are located in the most popular part of a region as well. One of its earliest provincial newspapers is the Sun.Star Pampanga which was established in the early 1990s which covers primarily the Pampanga area and the whole of Region III.

Sun.Star Pampanga produces their copies daily. The total number of their copies that are printed depends on the amount of orders that they receive. One situation would be is when a politician sees that he has a good article about him in Sun.Star, he will order a certain number of copies that he can distribute or give to the people. The average number of copies printed by Sun.Star Pampanga per day is about 3,000 copies, but it still varies on the number of orders as we have said. However, it also has a total of about 5% to 10% of returns daily. Sun.Star Pampanga provides a flexible time for its reporters, correspondents, columnists and everyone who works for the paper itself, just like in any other newspapers. This is as long as they can beat the deadline of the editors and the publisher which is usually around 3pm so they can catch up with the dealers since they come in the press around 1am.

The printing of the newspaper is done outside the location of the editorial, but is still near the building. This is because other establishments also occupy Tita’s Commercial Bldg. II, which houses the main office of Sun.Star Pampanga. The paper is not as large as the national broadsheet but bigger than the tabloid and is about 11”x 17” (29cms. x 43cms.) Sun.Star Pampanga currently uses offset printing to produce their newspapers, and this process usually take around five to six hours to complete. The printing usually starts about five o'clock in the afternoon, but the time may be adjusted if any significant news occurs during the night which will affect the paper's layout and content.

Sun.Star Pampanga includes texts and pictures in their newspaper. There is no definite amount of advertising in Sun.Star Pampanga, and they only accommodate up to four pages of advertisement which they call as the editorial ad ratio. But a full page advertisement may cost about P10, 000, and a per column cm is about P45.00.

Sun.Star Pampanga is also available online along with the other local Sun.Star in the Philippines such as Sun.Star Bacolod, Sun.Star Baguio, Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro, Sun.Star Cebu, Sun.Star Davao, Sun.Star Dumaguete, Sun.Star General Santos, Sun.Star Iloilo, Sun.Star Pangasinan, Sun.Star Zambales and the disputed Sun.Star Manila which feeds the local Sun.Star of national news for the day in the country.