Introduction by Croakey: This week Croakey Health Media joined more than 800 other news organisations in supporting World News Day on 28 September – a global campaign to highlight the role that journalists can play in providing trustworthy news and information that serves both citizens and democracy.
World News Day is timed to coincide with a United Nations initiative, the International Day for Universal Access to Information, which puts a focus on the importance of developing a healthier information environment.
“In a digital world overflowing with information, misinformation and disinformation, access alone is not enough: people also need timely, reliable information,” says a related UN site. “Timely and credible public information can strengthen trust, support informed decisions and help people participate meaningfully in society.”
To mark World News Day, journalists and editors wrote a variety of articles about the role of journalism in different contexts and societies (you can read them all here on topics ranging from climate coverage to truth-telling and the Trump Administration’s attacks on press freedom).
Below, Anna Mae Lamentillo, founder of Paraluman News, a youth-driven journalism project in The Philippines, examines the importance of journalism in Indigenous and local languages.
Anna Mae Lamentillo writes:
As I conduct a language audit of Metro Manila, I am struck by a paradox. This metropolis is home to at least 217 languages, a figure that grows with every new community I encounter. Yet some of the Philippines’ Indigenous and regional languages are fading before our eyes.
As a member of the Karay-a ethnolinguistic group, I know what disappears when a language weakens. We lose words, along with songs, rituals, humor, ecological knowledge, family histories, and ways of seeing the world. When a language falls silent, an archive burns without smoke.
This is not only a cultural emergency. It is a democratic one.
Democracy depends on citizens understanding what is being done in their name. Journalism helps people evaluate leaders, follow public spending, prepare for disasters, defend their rights, and join debate.
But information is not genuinely public when it is available only in languages many citizens do not fully command.
The Philippines, with roughly 117 million people, is home to around 175 living Indigenous languages, dozens of which are endangered. Yet Filipino and English dominate education, government, and mass media. From classrooms to courtrooms, these languages often determine who can participate confidently and who must struggle through unfamiliar vocabulary.
The imbalance sends a clear message: local languages belong at home, while the languages of power belong in public life.
That message has consequences.
A farmer may hear about a new agricultural policy without understanding its technical terms. An Indigenous community may receive news about mining or land disputes in a language that fails to express its relationship with the land.
During typhoons, health emergencies, or elections, unclear information can become dangerous. People may turn instead to rumours or misleading social media posts that speak more directly to them.
Journalism in local languages helps close this democratic gap. It does more than translate reports produced in Manila word for word. It allows journalists to ask different questions, recognise local priorities, and explain national events through community experience. Reports in Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Bikol, Waray, Ilocano, Kapampangan, or Kinaray-a can carry meanings and concerns that disappear in a standardised national version.
Reviving local language journalism
This conviction is why I founded Paraluman News. I wanted to help build journalism that does not require communities to abandon their language, identity, or experience before entering the public conversation.
Paraluman News rests on a simple belief: access to information should not depend on whether someone speaks the language of institutions, elites, or major newsrooms. Journalism must enter communities, listen carefully, and communicate in ways people recognise as their own.
This is also a question of who will shape the future of Philippine media. Young Filipinos are often treated only as audiences or users of technology.
But they can become reporters, translators, editors, community historians, and media innovators. They already move across languages, platforms, and cultural spaces. They know how a story can travel from a barangay conversation to a group chat, a podcast, or a national debate.
With training, trust, and resources, young people can lead the revival of local language journalism. They can record the stories of elders, produce news videos in regional languages, build digital archives, and explain public policy in forms their communities can use. They can show that a mother tongue is not a barrier to modernity, but a source of authority, creativity, and connection.
Metro Manila reveals the promise and peril of multilingual life. In markets, schools, and online spaces, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Chavacano, Hokkien, Taglish, and many other languages meet and evolve.
But migration creates pressure to abandon the mother tongue. Regional accents are mocked as provincial, and speakers learn to flatten the musical contours of home in order to sound acceptable.
Newsrooms can reinforce this hierarchy or challenge it. They should invest in reporters, editors, broadcasters, and community correspondents who work in local and Indigenous languages.
This work should be part of daily public interest journalism, not an occasional heritage feature. Community radio, regional newspapers, podcasts, and digital channels deserve sustained support. Universities should also train multilingual journalists.
Supporting local language journalism is not simply a cultural project. It is an investment in informed citizenship, public trust, and equal participation. A democracy cannot claim to include everyone while requiring millions of people to leave their strongest language at the door.
On World News Day, we should remember that the right to know includes the right to understand. Journalism fulfills its democratic purpose only when people can hear the truth, question power, and imagine their future in a language that feels like their own.
• This article is shared to mark World News Day, a worldwide campaign highlighting the essential role of journalism in providing facts and clarity.
Author details
Anna Mae Lamentillo, founder of Paraluman News and a proud member of the Karay-a ethnolinguistic group in the Philippines, builds AI systems and media platforms that reflect the full spectrum of human culture – not only dominant voices. Educated at Oxford, LSE, Harvard Kennedy School, and the University of the Philippines, she brings cross-disciplinary expertise to Paraluman News, a multilingual, youth-centered platform advancing accessible journalism and local language resources for Philippine AI development.
Paraluman News is described on its website as “an independent youth-driven journalism agency built for a new generation of thinkers, questioners, and changemakers. We tell stories that matter – raw, real, and unfiltered – capturing the pulse of today’s culture, politics, and everyday struggles from the perspective of young people. We champion fearless reporting, creative storytelling, and fresh voices often overlooked in mainstream media. Powered by curiosity and guided by truth, Paraluman News creates content that’s sharp, relevant, and deeply connected to the world young people actually live in.”
See Croakey’s archive of articles on public interest journalism
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