More about CJJ
Authority on Cebu media
Founding, initial group
Founded in 2004 by journalist-lawyer Pachico A. Seares. founding editor-in-chief of SunStar Cebu and SunStar Superbalita [Cebu] and later public and standards editor of the two newspapers.
Among those who worked with Seares on the print editions of the magazine were editors-writers Cherry Ann T. Lim and Mayette Q. Tabada, artist-designer Jun Velez and artists Josua Cabrera and Rio N. Villegas and photographer Alex Badayos, and on admin matters and occasional contributor, journalist Michelle P. So.
12 print issues
CJJ, short for Cebu Journalism and Journalists, was published in print, magazine format, for 12 issues. First issue was in 2004, skipped two years, before its regular yearly run starting 2006 until 2017. The maiden issue was titled “Cebu Journalism: the People and the Times” and the issues after that carried the name CJJ and the issue number: from CJJ2 to CJJ12.
Shift to digital
Even during its print phase, some articles, the major ones, were published online under cebujournalismandjournalists.org, set up (“powered”) and administered by Max T. Limpag. That started in 2011 (cover theme: “Women in Media”) when CJJ6 abandoned the format of collecting photos of Cebu’s working journalists and replaced them with articles and features about Cebu media.
Images of early CJJ, with digital version produced by Max T. Limpag of Innopub.
In October 2021, work started to move the 12-issue print content to a modified site cebujournalism.ph. That has involved selecting major and interesting articles from the print editions, indexing them under different categories, and adding new materials as often as new media-related issues crop up or incidents affecting the press occur and reshape thinking and practices of the industry.
The transfer and re-structuring of the new CJJ shelter has taken more time than planned but the mission remains: for the publication to become a trustworthy and trusted source of information and knowledge about Cebu media.
Current structure
Regularly, as often as developments demand, a cluster of articles, often with a theme, is added to the CJJ website. Thus, the website is not just a repository of the articles from the 12 print issues. It also publishes new articles to enrich continually CJJ, which is dedicated solely to preserving and spreading information and knowledge about Cebu’s media.
CJJ mission
As the sworn commitment of CJJ declares, the publication seeks to record Cebu media’s present. Much of the past was unfortunately lost in the passage of time and for lack of zeal and capacity to record how journalism and journalists then fared. CJJ has tried to retrieve scraps of the industry’s past even as it catches glimpses of its future.
On what the Cebu media faces now, CJJ lends support to initiatives of such organizations as the Cebu Citizens- Press Council (CCPC), Cebu News Workers Foundation (Cenewof), NewsCoop, Cebu Media Legal Aid, Marcelo B. Fernan Cebu Press Center, CJJ Media Gallery at Museo Sugbo and the CJJ Books at Cebu City Rizal Library. 