Stand for Truth strengthens online presence with exclusive, compelling stories

Stand for Truth (SFT) further strengthens its stance as one of the country’s leading online news sources, continuing to record impressive views both on Facebook and YouTube with its compelling and exclusive stories aired weeknights.

For July, the GMA News and Public Affairs’ pioneering mobile journalism newscast recorded a total of 22.3 million views on Facebook via its official page. Launched just this year, SFT’s FB page currently has almost 200,000 followers to date.

Among the top videos that contributed to the high volume of views include Atom Araullo’s “Di Matapos Na Krisis: A Stand for Truth COVID-19 Mid-Year Report,” which raked in 426,000 views.

“Di Matapos Na Krisis” is a consolidated report that aims to show how the government has responded to the crisis from the day the pandemic has been announced up to half of this year. It includes timeline and the Philippines' parallelism with other countries and reports given by the World Health Organization.

Meanwhile, Nico Waje’s exclusive stories "Ex-Policemen Project: Illegal Construction sa Watershed” and “Baklas sa Baras: Illegal Construction, Binaklas na!” recorded 723,000 combined views. The two-part report exposed the illegal construction within a watershed and protected area in Baras, Rizal. Ten days after airing the first part of the report last July 22, Masungi Georeserve Foundation, DENR, and PENRO-Rizal announced that the illegal construction will be demolished by LGUs.

Since its launch last year, SFT has produced stories picked up by mainstream news outlets. Like Waje’s exclusive report, several issues featured in the mobile newscast created public awareness, leading the concerned groups and authorities to take the much-needed actions.

On top of these special features and exclusive reports, some of the most-watched SFT stories on Facebook include Mj Geronimo’s “Women’s Desk: No Police Escort” aired last July 9, which earned 1.8 million views.

Three more stories produced by Waje also got high views. His report last July 20 dubbed “Pinalayas ni Sinas” recorded 1.4 million views. This was followed by “Hostage Taking sa East Avenue Medical Center” and “High Profile Inmate, Buhay Raw,” which tallied 1.3 million and 1 million views, respectively.

Rounding off the most-viewed stories last month is Jairo Bolledo’s report “Patay Pero Gumaling sa COVID-19” which has 930,000 views.

On YouTube, SFT registered 2.3 million combined views for July from GMA Public Affairs and GMA News channels.

Joining Araullo in SFT is GMA resident political analyst Richard Heydarian. Aside from Waje, Geronimo, and Bolledo, producing their stories using their mobile phones are  Manal Sugadol, Shai Lagarde, Izzy Lee, and Jm Encinas.

Catch Stand for Truth every night at 9 p.m. via its Facebook page, as well as GMA News’ and GMA Public Affairs’ YouTube channels. (30)