By ISABELLA OLIVARES
Hot off the heels of her Best TV Newscaster award from the 2017 Golden Dove Awards, former CNN Philippines Newsroom anchor Mitzi Borromeo is hosting the third season of Profiles and spearheading Digi Pinoy, the channel’s first-ever digital series on information technology and its effects on the Filipino way of life.
What prompted you to switch from straight news reporting to working on Profiles and exploring the digital sphere?
With this job, from the moment I began, it has taken up more and more of my time so I just wanted to do other things. One is to finish — I really hope I can do it — an MA in Media Studies under Broadcasting in UP. I let that drag on for so long because everyday I was in the studio the whole time. Also, I really like being on the field and talking to people. I like being able to take a more active role, rather than just reading the news.
If you could have anyone in the world — dead or alive — on Profiles, who would it be and what would you ask him or her?
I know this sounds boring but he was really my idol growing up and why I think I ended up on TV — David Attenborough. I love him! His voice is so calming and he’s so funny because he can talk about sex between animals but it’s so serene. He can take a mundane or boring topic and really turn it around. What would I ask him? Perhaps it would be what was the weirdest animal he’s seen. He was my first idol, apart from Madonna.
Let’s talk about Digi Pinoy. What can people expect from your maiden episode?
The first topic of Digi Pinoy focuses on love and relationships online, on human and romantic connections. Digi Pinoy is more of an anthropological take. It takes a look at how the digital world has transformed the way we behave. We’re investigating how the times are changing and how that’s affecting our behavior, rather than coming up with some form of judgment. We will show you what’s happening and have experts come in. At the end of the day, it’s about the human experience and perspectives.
There’s a technical revolution in the field of journalism and the Philippines is still somewhat caught in the middle. What can you say about the state of online journalism in the Philippines?
At CNN Philippines, we like the dialogue part of it — you can get direct feedback and analytics to study. It’s a good way of getting immediate feedback and measures of success, but we have to be careful of the quality and brace ourselves for the criticism. There’ll always be criticism and even bullying. So we have to even give more attention to the person; we lose sight of the fact that there’s a human behind the content.
There’s a boom in podcast popularity now and audio journalism is now a part of it. Is that something you’d be interested in entering?
I just got into podcasts last year. I don’t know if CNN Philippines would ever but I would love to! When you’re driving in the car, you can just listen to it. I’ve been listening to TED Radio Hour and stuff on design and Freakonomics Radio. I don’t know if we’re ready for it, but I would love to do satire like Stephen Colbert stuff. That’s my dream, that one day we would have good satire.
“Mitzi Borromeo: On The Story” was originally published in the April-May 2018 issue of PeopleAsia
