Like media organizations, those seeking leadership roles should also learn to listen

Feedback has been part of the set up at abs-cbnNEWS.com for quite some time. When I joined the organization as part of the Newsbreak team that was brought in back in 2008, there already was a regularly updated page dedicated to reader feedback sent to us either through email or text.

To encourage readers to send in more feedback, we decided to expand the page into a regular section on the site even prior to the launch of our new site in mid-2008.

We also added a note at the bottom of all our pages to let our users know how they can send reactions to stories either published on abs-cbnNEWS.com or aired on any of the ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs shows.

The response was immediate. As soon as they saw that comments, even the ones criticizing us, were being published, readers started sending us more feedback. It was obvious to us then that our readers appreciate being listened to and being heard.

Over the past 2 years, technology allowed us to get feedback in new and more engaging ways.

Social media tools

Powerful chat tools allowed us to draw commentary from viewers watching programs on TV, real time.

The comments feature alows readers to directly post their views at the bottom of story pages.

Social media tools, such as Facebook, Multiply and Twitter, are allowing us to develop deeper relationships with our readers.

It has not been an easy relationship. It's an ever developing bond that is almost like the Philippines' relationship with the United States of America: it's love-hate.

At times our readers would praise us for a job well done.

More often than not, however, they would unmercifully lash at us even for minute mistakes.

For a writer whose only intention is to capture a story the best way he or she can, it can be very unsettling.

Taking apart, piece by piece

For some reason, people are more unforgiving and cruel in hyperspace than in real life.

A colleague for instance, wrote a fairly good story about blogging and libel only to bear the brunt of a blogger's ire.

He actually had a section of his blog in her name. The section linked to a series of blogposts he wrote mentioning her along with personalities he had been lambasting in his blog.

She was traumatized for quite a while.

Cloaked in the anonymity of cyberspace, feedback writers can take you apart, piece by piece.

They not only criticize your judgment and writing skills but also malign you and question your motives and ethics in such a public space.

I could imagine that those who wrote those hurtful remarks might actually be gentle, level-headed people when you meet them up close.

Value in listening

All this, however, did not make us shy away from feedback.

We saw it as a way to improve our craft as well as our coverage of issues.

We thanked those who asked us to correct mistakes and considered the comments of those who criticized our articles for bias.

We saw the value in listening. Many tips from our readers have been developed into stories.

Moreover, it seems that even those who post the most negative of comments concerning our reportage keep on coming back and keep on posting similar comments.

We know our suki (frequent customers) by the usernames they use.

Thus, in honor of feedback, we launched the Boto Mo iPatrol mo Website under the bmpm.abs-cbnnews.com subdomain.

It is the only site supported by a major Philippine news organization that is solely dedicated to user-generated content.

Through this site, readers are able to join ABS-CBN's Boto Mo iPatrol Mo movement and post content on issues they think the public and authorities should know--unfiltered and unedited.

It is democracy in action in cyberspace.

The Harapan VP, Tandem Debate

This brings me to the subject of "Harapan: the ABSCBN / ANC Vice-presidential Debate," which was held very late in the evening of Sunday, March 21, 2010. /

Harapan is the latest of a series of major shows initiated by ABSCBN's News and Current Affairs division and by the ABSCBN News Channel (ANC) that abs-cbnNEWS.com participated in and helped turn into what we call multi-platform events.

At last week's Harapan, our audiences -- in the studio, at home and abroad were given the opportunity to react real time to statements made by the candidates on TV.

In the studios, there was the Wireless Audience Response System (WARS) which allowed the audience to express real time whether they found a candidate's statement kapani-paniwala (believable) or not.

Those watching the show from home were also given different options through which they can send in their reactions -- by voting via mobile or online, and by posting their reactions through the chatroom, as well as through the social networks (Facebook, Multiply and Twitter).

And, boy, did they react.

The 4 of us who were moderating the chatroom were swamped as chat posts came in at a rate of 15 comments per second.

Some chatters were begging us to slow down publishing posts because they could not keep up.

Our PCs crashed from so much activity. We could hardly monitor the chatter on the social networks anymore.

A "Tweetfest"

When the dust settled, we realized why: in a little over 2 hours, our chatroom was flooded by almost 10,000 comments.

On Twitter, the hash tag we started for the event generated so much activity that it became 6th trending topic worldwide at the height of the debate.

Enthusiasts called it a "Tweetfest."

To us, it only meant one thing: our viewers appreciated the interactive channels we employed to engage them.

What this meant though is that they also subjected our guests, the candidates debating on TV, to the same unforgiving, real time scrutiny and extremely frank remarks that we have somehow started getting used to over the past couple of years.

Each one of the candidates got his/her share of negative and positive commentary. But as the show progressed, one candidate was obviously getting the brunt of the negative feedback.

It got to the point that we stopped publishing some of the critical comments concerning the same candidate because we felt they were already below the belt.

Short of directly accusing us, the ones ticking the "publish" buttons, of rigging the chatroom to favor one side, somebody connected to the candidate later suggested that the chat may have been "infiltrated" by hacks favoring one of their rivals.

So how does one answer such a claim?

Profanities filtered

There are channels that we have some control over. There are channels that we couldn't possibly control.

We try to exercise some control over what goes into the chatroom because we want to keep the conversation relevant to what is being discussed on TV and make the experience as pleasant and enjoyable as possible.

We filter out profanity and particularly offensive remarks. We filter out off-topic remarks and try, as much as we can, to keep the chat free of spam.

The social networks are a different story. Anybody with a Twitter account can use a hashtag. If you search Twitter using the hash tag #harapan, chances are you will get both relevant and off-topic remarks.

Yet, somehow, the general conversation on Twitter also mirrored the conversation in the chatroom. Both conversations also somehow mirrored the outcome in the WARS.

The value of social media

Following Obama's historic win in the United States, candidates have seen the value of the social media in spreading their message across. Their advertisements swamp even our private conversations with friends on Facebook.

We know for a fact that there are partisans online, on Twitter, on Facebook and inside our chatroom.

Given, however, that so many were tweeting and chatting about what was happening on the show, could it have been possible for one group of partisans to lord it over the rest and take over the slant of the whole conversation on Twitter?

Or is it possible that what came out in all these channels just might be the people's honest feedback to the candidates over how they performed in the show?

Instead of pointing fingers and protesting over the outcome, shouldn't candidates listen and take their feedback to heart?

We expect our readers, as always, to send us their honest reactions regarding this point. - abs-cbnNEWS.com/ Newsbreak