JANIE OCTIA
Janie Octia has 15 years of experience, both as a journalist and programs/partnerships manager. She has worked for CNN, Yahoo, and most recently for Meta, which she joined in 2018 to run training initiatives for newsrooms and journalists in Asia.
In 2022, she moved to New York City to manage programs for Bulletin writers and is looking for opportunities to continue supporting newsrooms and journalists.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Meta
Program Manager, News Programs
June 2022 - February 2023
As program manager, I develop and manage programs for Bulletin.com writers including running existing initiatives and piloting new programs and measure the success of these programs by tracking key performance metrics.
Meta
News Programs Manager, APAC
July 2021 - June 2022
In this role, I developed and ran initiatives for newsrooms and journalists in Asia Pacific focused on data-driven publishing strategies to grow audience and businesses on social platforms and launched a digital security program for reporters and civil society representatives and a mobile program on best practices on Facebook in collaboration with third-party organizations.
Facebook
Strategic Partner Development, News, APAC
February 2018 to July 2021
Through scaled projects and programs, I work with hundreds of news organizations in Asia Pacific to help them use data and insights from CrowdTangle to grow their engagement and sustain their businesses on Facebook and Instagram.
These programs include a grant for Southeast Asia newsrooms to fund training and data-driven projects, education programs to help newsrooms in Indonesia and the Philippines use CrowdTangle in breaking news and elections coverage and initiatives to help newsrooms, such as Taiwan's ETToday and Thailand's Amarin, grow revenue on Facebook.
CNN
Social Publishing Producer
October 2016 to January 2018
Based in Hong Kong, I'm part of a global 24/7 Social Publishing team responsible for growing CNN's global presence across social platforms and messaging apps.
Responsibilities:
- Manage CNN and CNN International’s social accounts and ensure all accounts are updated with the most important news stories of the day
- Stay across all trending stories of the day and flag these stories to the digital and newsgathering teams
- Manage CNN’s LINE accounts which includes posting alerts, publishing updates and running live chats with CNN correspondents around the globe
- Liaise with various departments including digital, newsgathering and features to ensure they're producing content with a social audience in mind
Yahoo India and Southeast Asia
Senior Editorial Operations Manager
June 2011- March 2016
As the editorial operations manager in the region, I connect product and editorial teams and help manage media properties in the region. I ensure all Yahoo’s media properties in India and Southeast Asia are localised for the users and all content services are available and bug-free.
Responsibilities:
- Launch and manage media properties such as news, celebrity, sports, finance and lifestyle and ensure that all relevant content are onboarded and curated for the local audience
- Ensure that distribution platforms of Yahoo content in the region (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr) are updated
- Integrate editorial tools in the newsroom workflow including social media management, analytics and publishing products
- Design product features for internal publishing tools used by Yahoo editors around the world in coordination with product engineers, write product documentation for these tools and deliver training to the editorial teams
Achievements:
- Launched several media properties over the last five years and managed microsites for major news events such as elections and disasters
- Worked with product engineering teams to create internal content management systems (CMS), built to Yahoo’s needs and specifications, allowing for collaboration among Yahoo editors around the globe. Recently, I worked with the same team to integrate Tumblr, a company acquired by Yahoo, from a mass-market microblogging tool to a full-fledged multimedia editorial CMS.
- Wrote instructional guides for all publishing tools and provided training for all editors to help them adopt these tools into their workflows.
Yahoo Philippines
Producer and Global News Editor for the Philippines
September 2009 - May 2011
In my initial role at Yahoo as a producer for the Philippines, I was in charge of managing the daily programming of the homepage and other media properties.
Responsibilities:
- Wrote and produced news articles for Yahoo news, covering beats such as current events, politics and technology as well as entertainment and lifestyle.
- Localised relevant content from other Yahoo markets such as the United States and United Kingdom and reproduced them for the Filipino audience.
Achievements:
- Managed the homepage and special events page for the 2010 Philippine national elections which won our team a Yahoo editorial award.
- Conceptualized and launched OMG, Yahoo’s entertainment website in the Philippines, which became the foundation of OMG Awards, an annual people’s choice award for local celebrities that garnered millions of votes annually.
INQUIRER.net
Production Specialist
March 2008 - September 2009
As production specialist for Inquirer.net, the online arm of Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine’s biggest daily newspaper, I was part of the pioneer group that built and launched the multimedia section of the news website. I have led a small team of reporters and video editors producing current affairs, entertainment, lifestyle and sports videos.
Bayview Technologies Inc.
Public Relations Assistant
March 2007 - March 2008
As Public Relations Assistant for Bayview Technologies, an online gaming company, I was responsible for managing the company’s corporate and consumer product websites and all its advertising and marketing copies. I was also the project lead in all of the company’s press events and presence in key industry exhibits around the world.
PROJECTS
CrowdTangle provided a grant for five newsrooms across Southeast Asia to develop their journalists' data skills through funded projects.
Philippines' News5, the news unit of free-to-air broadcaster TV5 shares how the newsroom uses Facebook Live and CrowdTangle to cover breaking news.
A TV program in Thailand uses CrowdTangle to identify and amplify news stories that generated over 116 million interactions in a year.
To help monetize their video content through ad breaks, Taiwan's ETtoday turned to CrowdTangle to help identify which videos would perform best.
Watch how Indonesian news orgs used Facebook and CrowdTangle to cover one of the world’s biggest elections.
The South China Morning Post uses CrowdTangle lists and slack alerts to help their journalists make data-driven decisions.
As a fact-checker, VERA Files has used CrowdTangle lists — with great impact.
In 2017, as tensions between North Korea and the US escalate, CNN hosted a live chat on the messaging app LINE.
EDUCATION
Certificate: Data Visualization for Storytellers
KDMC Berkeley University of California Berkeley, USA
January 2015
Graduate Diploma, Management
Aalto Executive Education Academy Pte. Ltd, Singapore
July 2012 to October 2014
Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication, Major in Digital Media
St. Paul University Quezon City, Philippines
June 2004 to March 2007
