DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 26 May) – Journalist Robert “Bobby” Timonera is taking over as editor in chief of MindaNews effective June 1, 2023 while outgoing EIC Carolyn O. Arguillas is moving on to head its Publications, Archives and Library.
This was announced by Romer “Bong” Sarmiento, acting President of the Mindanao Institute of Journalism (MinJourn), in a meeting marking the 22nd anniversary of MindaNews on May 25. MindaNews is the news service arm of MinJourn.
Timonera, a 1986 graduate of the Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology, worked as a provincial correspondent of the now defunct Media Mindanao News Service and Manila-based newspapers in the late 1980s until 1992, when he moved to Manila to work as a reporter of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI). While in Manila, he covered education, human rights, environment, health, church, labor, the Senate, and technology. He returned to Iligan City in 1997 and continued reporting for the PDI as provincial correspondent.
Timonera was one of the correspondents of the PDI Mindanao Bureau who left the country’s most widely circulated newspaper in May 2021 to set up MindaNews along with Arguillas, who served as PDI Mindanao Bureau Chief from 1991 to April 2001.
Timonera is the third EIC of MindaNews. Arguillas was EIC from 2001 to 2010 and from 2013 until May 31, 2023. H. Marcos C. Moderno was EIC from 2010 to 2013.
Mordeno and Sarmiento are the other editors of MindaNews, the news service arm of MinJourn, an organization that started as the Mindanao News and Information Cooperative Center in 2001.
MindaNews was founded by independent, professional Mindanawon journalists who, sick and tired of having to quarrel with the Manila-based national desk for newspaper space and for situating events in their proper context, left the country’s most widely-circulated broadsheet in May 2001 to tell the stories of Mindanao from the lenses of Mindanao.
The news service e-mailed its first stories and photographs on May 25, 2001 and has been dispatching news and photos daily since. MindaNews set up the website, www.mindanews.com as a weekly in early May 2002 and became a daily online presence since February 2003, a change in frequency triggered by the Buliok War then.
MindaNews did not limit itself to being a news service. It spearheaded the Mindanao Media Summit, a gathering of Mindanawon editors and news managers, that started in 2002. It has been conducting trainings for Mindanawon journalists and students since.
It also initiated the Mindanao Summer Institute of Journalism, a summer training for students and anyone interested in journalism; conducted several Grassroots Documentation and Reporting Training (GDRTs) and trainings for information officers; published a newsmagazine, OUR Mindanao, as a monthly from 2010 to 2011 and later as a weekly from 2013 to 2015; organized at least two Mindanao Book Festivals; mounted several photo exhibits and published several books on Mindanao issues.
In 2015, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility honored MindaNews with an Award of Distinction “for its commitment to accuracy, fairness and relevance that since its founding has helped provide Filipinos the information and analyses they need to understand the particularities of the Mindanao reality which includes but is not limited to issues of war and peace; for providing sober and fair reports on events needed for clarity in an atmosphere of partisanship; for keeping to the highest standards of ethical and professional practice even in the face of threats, harassments and other perils that included the murder of one of its staff; and for thus contributing to the making of a culture of peace in a society riven by a long history of conflict.”
In 2010, the Ateneo de Zamboanga University gave MindaNews the Ateneo Peace Award “in recognition of their significant contributions in providing accurate, timely and comprehensive news and information on Mindanao, its people, its culture, and its advocacies in the pursuit of being an alternative medium of media coverage especially in peace and development concerns, thus making a marked difference in Journalism and Public Information in the country.”
In 2013, MindaNews was awarded the “Favorite Online News Portal” in the 1st Blue Knight Media Awards of the Ateneo de Davao University.
Earlier, it was one of the recipients of the Mindanao Peace Champion award by the ACT for Peace Programme of the Government of the Philippines-United Nations Development Programme-Philippines. (MindaNews)
