The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By. Joni Gesmundo
The Market Monitor was born a decade ago in a small office along T.M. Kalaw Street in Ermita, Manila, with a handful of seasoned writers who possessed a passion for relevant and timely stories on the financial sector without the incomprehensible jargon only business leaders can understand.
Back then, the challenge was competing with other daily business broadsheets already entrenched in the financial community, and acceptance of a weekly frequency. The Market Monitor accepted the challenge and started churning out more comprehensive stories not usually seen in other daily business papers.
Thus, focus became in-depth reporting and analyses that reflect the current thinking of business and community leaders, even government leaders. The perspective from these stories led to the formulation of correct decisions that guided the companies or government agencies.
Proof of the success of The Market Monitor over the last decade is the confidence exhibited by readers and subscribers in this multi-platform media outlet – print edition, web page and FB account.
The Market Monitor’s chief attribute is its independence, as its editors, columnists and writers, who have been through the toughest situations in the newspaper business, did not allow either business interests or government pressure to reflect on the pages of its weekly issues.
Its editors and supporters ably steered the newspaper through the financial challenges to uphold its journalistic task of giving readers relevant information in the field of business.
Answering the challenge of technology, The Market Monitor also beefed up its online presence, giving it a respectable place in social media.
The strategy is to give the paper a conventional presence through its weekly editions and the regularly updated website that provided wider and stronger exposure.
As a result, the weekly business newspaper is now patronized in offices of business and political leaders and major companies.
Since its first print edition on December 8, 2014 as a “tall boy” paper, The Market Monitor has cultivated respect among its increasing number of readers and subscribers for featuring news, analyses, opinions, and features on various topics that are written with depth, clarity, and detail that make the newspaper stand out from the rest in the industry.
The Market Monitor has since shifted to the regular broadsheet size as part of its goal to make it even more competitive with existing broadsheets.
The shift to broadsheet size is also an affirmation of the newspaper staff to its readers that The Market Monitor is up to the challenge of upholding the ideals of print journalism, despite some views that the print industry’s days are numbered as a result of the rise of electronic media.
The electronic edition – made possible by the second generation of editorial staff who carried the torch from the original founders – enabled the paper to gain worldwide presence.
There are accurate observations that Filipino readers have an overwhelming supply of stories about sex and violence that are the daily fare of existing tabloids, some broadsheets, television, and radio in the desperate pursuit of shoring up finances.
Readers also choke daily on stories about politics and political strife that offer crass entertainment but do little in helping the nation to bail itself out of the rut of poverty.
The Market Monitor seeks to find a niche in the industry by coming up with stories that inspire readers to reach greater heights, stories that can edify Filipinos and make them better human beings.
Stories that can make readers understand more and appreciate what’s happening to the country and what they can do to contribute to its progress and assure the new generation of Filipinos of a future brighter than what their predecessors have been the main content over the last decade of The Market Monitor’s existence.
While our newspaper will continue to strive to be the best, it is content, in the meantime, with being known simply as a good and reliable source of relevant, timely and truthful information. Aware of the pitfalls of blind ambition and refusing to follow the way of some who would not hesitate to use unacceptable means to reach the top just to be considered the best, The Market Monitor has made it known that no amount of success can be exchanged for a good reputation.
The Market Monitor today aims to become a staunch advocate of professional journalism in this crucial stage of the country’s history.
The Market Monitor hopes to capture the country’s transformation from a basket case in the region, which has long been looked down on by most of its neighbors, to becoming a nation that would guide the region in taking its place as a major force in the community of nations.
To achieve its role of helping the nation complete this complex task, The Market Monitor’s editors will strive to simplify news stories, especially business stories that Filipino readers often find complicated and difficult to understand.
This desire for simplicity in reporting the news, The Market Monitor believes, will greatly contribute to readers understanding what is truly happening around them.