Resource Center · Training

The PCIJ maintains a specialized collection on journalism, politics, current affairs and mass media. Its wide selection of journalism and mass media books cater to the needs of journalism and mass communications students and professional journalists.

More than a dozen Metro Manila newspapers are delivered to the library everyday. In addition, the PCIJ has a selection of provincial and community newspapers as well as regional publications and academic journals. The resource center has microfilm copies of the Bulletin Today (Manila Bulletin) from 1980-1986 and Philippine Daily Inquirer from 1986 to the present. The PCIJ library subscribes to the Ateneo periodicals index, a computerized index of articles from 238 newspapers, journals and magazines published in the Philippines and Asia. The index, which is in the Win ISIS format, is a handy reference for those researching on a particular issue or topic of current interest.

The PCIJ library also provides Internet access. In addition, it has hundreds of vertical files on topics ranging from overseas women workers to corruption and malnutrition. These files include registration papers and financial statements of over 300 Philippine companies and information on over 300 key personalities, ranging from Jose Almonte to Lucio Tan.

The library has other non-book materials such as videotapes, CD-ROMs, and an extensive collection of photographs dating back to the late 1980s.

Special Services

The PCIJ now accepts requests from individuals and organizations interested in acquiring corporate documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other research requests will also be entertained on a case-to-case basis. For a fee, the PCIJ Resource Center can access Commission on Audit reports, budget reports and reports on fund releases from the Department of Budget and Management, statements of assets of government officials, reports of campaign expenditures filed by candidates, and other kinds of primary documents.

The library also holds lectures for journalism students on such topics as investigative reporting and computer-assisted research. Interested parties may contact the PCIJ Training Desk for further information.

Film showings may also be scheduled for students and other interested groups and individuals. Featured films are those available at the PCIJ library.

Training

The Center set up a full-fledged Training Desk in 1994, in response to demands from reporters and editors for seminars responsive to the needs of beat reporters, the media’s frontline workers. PCIJ seminars go beyond the basic theoretical inputs provided by journalism textbooks. Instead, they focus on actual problems confronted by reporters, including evaluating sources; verifying data and gathering evidence; ethical conduct between source and reporter; and access to information.

The Center tries as much as possible to combine inputs on journalistic craft, particularly investigative reporting techniques, with substantive inputs on particular areas of concern, such as the environment or local governance. It also uses these seminars to foster frank exchanges between journalists and officials, particularly on such issues as freedom of information, access to documents, and the rights of journalists.

Even before the Training Desk was formally organized, PCIJ was already into knowledge-sharing activities. Since 1990, it has conducted almost a hundred training seminars, workshops and forums for print, broadcast, and online journalists (lately including citizen bloggers), journalism teachers and students on journalism and investigative reporting skills. More than a thousand journalists in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, and other Southeast Asian countries have attended these training seminars.

Click here for a full list of the Center’s training portfolio.