WHAT IS THE SINAG JTS?

The Sinag Journalism Training Seminars are FREE SEMINARS given by Sinag Printing and is open to all, in particular, students of public and private schools.

There are no NO REGISTRATION FEES for joining the Sinag JTS, our only requirement is that participants bring their own food and their own writing materials.

WHY FREE JOURNALISM SEMINARS?

Sinag Publishing and Printing Services is an enterprise that has pledged a vocation to community service and learning.  The launching of our Free Journalism Training Seminars is our way of showing that even small companies like Sinag printing can do social responsibility programs for our community.

In particular, because we are newspaper printers we have pledged our time and resources to helping the youth of our city embrace and develop a love for writing and journalism by launching our own free journalism seminars which is now known as the Sinag JTS.

We chose journalism seminars because as newspaper publishers/printers, Sinag is in a position to share our knowledge of newspapering to the youth of our community.  We also believe that in a time when press freedom is being attacked in our country (So many journalists killed in what critics call a “culture of impunity in the Philippines”), it is important to teach our youth that journalism is not just a “dangerous job” as most people here perceive nowadays but a noble profession-- a vocation and not just a career.  That’s why we engage practicing journalists as our seminar speakers -- so as to provide the perspective of actual journalists who have knowledge of current industry practices and issues in the Philippines.

SINAG JTS: INTERNATIONAL AWARDEE

In October 2011, Sinag Printing Press won the Nataza Prize of the World Young Reader Prize given by the Paris, France-based World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), a global organization of more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites, and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries.

The Nataza Prize is given to newspaper printing plants that teach young people about newspapers and journalism and is named after Nataza Vuckovic Lesendric (1966-2011), a Serbian who owned a distribution system and set up a printing plant for the alternative press under the government of Slobodan Milosevic.  Lesendric modernized the management of the distribution system and the printing plant while supporting and promoting freedom of the press.

Ruel Landicho and wife Raia Jennifer dela Peña-Landicho, proprietors of Sinag Publishing and Printing Services, received the Nataza Prize in ceremonies held at the Reed Exhibitions Wien in Vienna, Austria on October 12, 2011 at the 63rd World Newspaper Congress and the 18th World Editors Forum.

According to the WAN-IFRA jury which judged the awards in Brazil, Sinag's seminars are "a fitting tribute to the person after whom this category is named as the commitment is clear to assuring that the youth learn about the importance and fragility of a free press and about how to do good journalism."