Journalism in a hurry

Note: Blog posts tagged "J117" (such as this one) are requirements for the Online Journalism class I'm taking this semester. See all of my J117-related posts.

Source

They say journalism is "history in a hurry." The profession is all about reporting stories accurately, fairly, and completely—but also very quickly.

A decade ago, printing "history in a hurry" meant a whole day of legwork—scurrying around from office to office gathering documents and talking to sources to create a comprehensive news story. When Pinatubo exploded in the 1990s, newsrooms sent out reporters, who talked to sources and wrote stories, which they sent back to their desks for broadcast or publishing.

We're finding that today's journalists don't even have the luxury of one workday. In the era of online news, journalism isn't just journalism anymore—it's journalism in a hurry. In 2009, when Ondoy hit Manila, reporters were tweeting what their sources were telling them and uploading photos taken from their phones on Facebook.

Paul Bradshaw's diagram on how digitization has changed the news production cycle is very interesting. In a matter of years, the three stages in the news production process, once distinct, now occur simultaneously. They've become layers, and not stages, of the cycle.

Bradshaw adds that because so many newsrooms have switched to this model, the new process has become formalized. Post-Web news organizations now have the same important editorial process and responsibilities as pre-Web ones, which is very important for the integrity of the profession.

The ground is shaking underneath the feet of the world's journalism educators. J schools should catch up with this in the next year or two if they don't want to lag behind in the long run. We should definitely keep teaching students the long-held tenets of journalism.

But we should start teaching them how to perform their job in a fast-moving world. I don't think that's being done enough right now. It's harder than you might think to be fair, balanced, accurate and ethical in a world of Twitter, Facebook and an audience whose appetite for news seems insatiable. I think that requires a wider skill set than the ones we're currently teaching.

There isn't much difference between what journalism schools teach and what the industry expects. There is, however, an inadequacy—the methods taught in school are for an era bygone. They've outlived the context in which they were taught. What we need to start working on is how we can teach the same quality journalism in an entirely different paradigm. And we better hurry. The Web won't wait.

Online journalism and the changing face of media

Note: Blog posts tagged "J117" (such as this one) are requirements for the Online Journalism class I'm taking this semester. See all of my J117-related posts.

Online journalism is changing the media because it easily subsumes the tri-media. Conventions of print, television, and radio can be used to complement each other in a common environment online. ABS-CBN, a TV giant, now publishes print stories, in addition to an online stream of its radio station and videos on news reports—all in one website.

The emerging online medium is also opening up the newsmaking process and making it much more participatory. Audiences now have a greater hand in what makes it to the news, as evidenced by CNN's iReport and ABS-CBN's Bayan Mo Ipatrol Mo. People who would never have a chance in the tri-media are now popular political bloggers, YouTube stars, and prominent podcasters. My friend Jeric Peña runs a very impressive backpack journalism site. He does all his own writing, recording, and editing. Leave it to bloggers to accomplish what news networks do with a three-man crew and a news van.

The real test for online journalism will be its adherence to the profession's ethical standards. The medium has made it all too easy for people to claim to be journalists while evading the strict ethical considerations that define the profession. For my Journalism Ethics class, for example, I looked at BlogWatch, which, in my opinion, presents itself as a "citizen media" effort but seems to fall short of journalistic standards.

Time will tell whether online journalism can reliably live up to these industry-defining standards.

Sunken Garden in the summer

My first Diliman summer is annoyingly warm, but more importantly, very pretty.

Three packets of "strong 'n rich" instant coffee

One for each of what I hope will be my last three all-nighters for this semester.

23/365

Went to Nueva Ecija—Katz's family had a reunion. The elementary school her cousin went to is at the end of their street. Most of the houses on their street are owned by relatives. The school is smaller than the place I live in. It's so provincial! Monday was fun. Life's fantastic.

21/365

Remember how I told you Katz and I signed up for military science class? It's actually kind of fun!

These are the times we live in.

Tonight I thought I'd stop by AS on my way to dinner to find out what was going on. They're having a cultural night, with performances from various artists that depict the history of the struggle of the university and its students.

What an auspicious way to spend the night before the university makes history once more. Tomorrow, UP students and administrators will walk all the way from Quezon City to Mendiola, along with other state and private universities, to signify their opposition to Noynoy Aquino's abhorrent policies. They will march in opposition to yet another hefty budget cut the national university is poised to sustain. They will march in opposition to cuts to the budgets of state tertiary schools. They will march in opposition to Aquino's gross underfunding of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) and of public health in general.

Simply put, UP will march all the way from Diliman to Mendiola because our President has neglected his responsibility to his nation's youth and people too gravely.

Frankly, I do not think Aquino will be shaken in the least by tomorrow's demonstration. His policy—to gradually drop quality tertiary education from the list of his government's responsibilities—has been rock solid since last year. No matter how resonant our call is—and more fundamentally, how crucial quality college education is to the development of a nation—he will probably not listen to it.

But what will matter is that he will know that we know what he is doing. He will know that we won't forget, neither will future generations, and neither will history. He will know that even as he has not been in power for two years, we already know what he will be remembered as: the President who shirked his responsibility to the nation's future.

UP is on strike.

Starting yesterday, the University of the Philippines Diliman went on strike to oppose the Aquino government's continuing neglect of its responsibility to state universities and colleges.

San Juan Representative JV Ejercito paid a visit to the AS steps, where youth leaders, UP officials and some of his fellow congressmen spoke for greater state subsidy. He said more than 100 lawmakers have signed a manifesto supporting the call for state support for tertiary schools.

Student Regent Kristina Conti said such a manifesto, though nice, is really an empty gesture because there isn't any overt action accompanying it. Sure, you want more financial support for state universities, but where's the money?

Kabataan Partylist Representative Mong Palatino, meanwhile, said that however determined Congress might be to increase the budget of SUCs, Aquino will still have the final say. Even if both houses of Congress agree to add to the budget of state schools, when the budget bill reaches Aquino's desk he can still choose to veto such additions. This is why it's a good idea to pressure Malacañang and the Department of Budget and Management about state subsidy for SUCs, he says.

In 2010, Aquino said, "We are gradually reducing the subsidy to SUCs to push them toward becoming self-sufficient and financially independent" because they had the "ability to raise their income." By income-raising ability, he probably means leasing public lands meant for academic use in shady and nonbeneficial deals, or shifting the burden to supposedly state-funded scholars by charging them higher tuition and laboratory fees.

The sad truth is that Aquino's outlook on quality state-supported tertiary education in the Philippines is this: "I don't give a shit." He does not care about training and creating our future engineers, social scientists, artists, journalists, filmmakers and novelists. He does not care about securing the country's industrial, cultural and social future.

He does not care about the future of this country.

His communications team will, of course, say that he does, and will point to his myopic programs—the Conditional Cash Transfer and Public-Private Partnerships—as evidence. Perhaps some will believe their drivel.

But those of us who know what's really at stake, who really understand why there is such an uproar over Aquino's admitted policy on quality tertiary education in this country, know that he has no sense of history, that he has a complete lack of ability to see beyond the horizon. Any president who looks at quality college education as an unwanted burden on the state does not understand what quality college education really means, especially if that president went to a private university and is a rich haciendero.

It's only been two years since his ascent to power, but we all know that for all the history and prestige he used to climb to the top, he will be a forgettable president.

We will not forget.

I passed the Bar!

Literally.

Ever wonder why they're called the bar exams? The part of the courtroom from the seats for the legal counsels up to the judge's bench is separated from the rest of the room by a partition called the bar. Only lawyers are allowed to pass the bar from the seating area for spectating citizens, thus the term.

It's not every day you get a chance to cross the bar in a normal courtroom, much less the en banc session hall of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. So when my Journalism class went there on Wednesday to learn about court reporting, I jumped at the chance.

We also got to ask Midas Marquez, spokesperson of the Supreme Court, a few questions. Apparently the Philippines is one of the few highest courts in the world that have a public information arm. Unlike the two other branches of government, the judiciary is supposed to be very reclusive and silent, perhaps to prevent accusations of prejudice and bias.

Photos of me at the podium that counsels use during hearings:

For as long as I remember I've always wanted to become a lawyer, and that's what my dad wants for me, too. Is it weird to be what your father wants you to be? I reckon it is, but then again, my knowledge of the matter is informed mostly by Hollywood movies and TV series whose plots revolve around the son struggling to succeed in life as his dad hounds him by saying, "You should have listened to me and gone into this or that; you would have been better off then."

One day, middle seat, one day.

September 14, 2011: one more reason to hate Manila

Manila is a mess. It's a poetic thing to say in a literature or creative writing class, but not so much when you're stewing in traffic on Padre Faura at 245pm when you should have been in the lobby of the Supreme Court for a class field trip at 155pm.

At 115pm I was in a taxi on Katipunan, on the way to the LRT station. At 125pm I was on the platform. While waiting for the train I called my classmate Elle to confirm the instructions I'd received earlier (train to Recto, transfer to Line One, train to UN Avenue). She handed the phone over to Angge, who told me I should have taken the MRT to save time. The taxi driver had told me the same thing, but we were already more than halfway to the Katipunan station and I wasn't about to tell him to go to Quezon Avenue instead.

Angge said I could get off at the Cubao station and board the MRT from there. When I got to the MRT there was a hellish line to get tickets—I've never seen a working MRT ticket machine in my life, and apparently they don't sell stored-value tickets—and I decided I might as well fall in, seeing as how I was already there.

While I was in line, a woman came up to my left and walked alongside me as the queue progressed, apparently trying to cut in front of me. I'm generally nice, but I have little tolerance for people who cut lines. I don't care if you're in a hurry or are running late for something. Unless you need immediate medical attention, the back of the line's that way.

So anyway, this woman, she was walking alongside me, and we started to play this silent queue game. I started to position my body to block any attempts she might make to step in front of me. She must have noticed, but she tried hard to stay nonchalant about the whole thing, keeping her gaze squarely on the ticket counter, pretending to crane her neck worriedly and wiping her neck with a piece of tissue. In the end, though, I got to buy my ticket to Taft before she did. Victory.

Or so I thought. The MRT is almost always very crowded, and I had to squeeze in and stand all the way from Cubao to Taft. (It's not as bad as Line 1, which requires passengers to inhale all manner of human stenches, but not as nice as Line 2, which, even during rush hour, is peaceful and roomy.) At Taft I flagged down a taxi and told the driver I needed to get to the Supreme Court.

"Sa Padre Faura 'yun, diba?" he asked.

A tentative "opo" was all I could manage, because back in Diliman I only have to know which color goes where to know I won't get lost. On Roxas Boulevard the driver confirmed directions with me, and I, finally surrendering to my geographical ineptitude, consulted Google Maps.

Google Maps, by the way, for all its amazing features, wasn't able to give me driving, transit or pedestrian directions from Roxas Boulevard to the Supreme Court. It was able to tell me that the Supreme Court was indeed on Padre Faura, though. "Oo nga po, sa Faura nga po," I told the driver confidently.

The next thing I know we're in Robinson's Manila, waiting to turn left onto a one-way street when I had a really strong hunch the gate I was looking for was the other way. But because I really can't find my way around Manila, I trusted my driver.

Just two corners later we were stuck in traffic again, this time on the street fronting the Philam Life building. By this time the taxi meter was at P110, and my now-agitated driver said he would turn right to UN Avenue, but go no further. It must have been around 240pm by then, and I was running out of options, so I paid him and walked out of the taxi and into the clogged street. I remember thinking, "This is so like those Hollywood movies where the protagonist is running late and the window of opportunity he's been waiting for the entire movie is about to close."

So, not long after that, I went all the way with the Hollywood metaphor and broke into a sprint. I presented my ID to the guards at the first Supreme Court gate I saw. They told me I should go to the other gate. I said "okay" and continued my sprint, but, after seeing that I was now running along the fence of the UP Manila College of Arts and Sciences, went back to clarify that we hadn't misunderstood each other. We hadn't indeed, and I ran again. Past the UP Manila fence I finally saw the Supreme Court building, presented my ID to the partly confused dude at the guardhouse—he looked like an intern to me—who waved me off without fussing.

At 255pm I was in one of the smaller courtrooms in the building (the ones where division hearings are held), panting and perspiring, my ass sweat staining the upholstered pews of the highest court in the country.

Gawd, I hate Manila.

Time is relative.

Stayed in Starbucks for five hours on Monday (until early Tuesday) to take care of org stuff and make a paper, which I finished six hours before it was due (achievement). It took me a tall classic and a grande double classic latte.

I don't think I've told you about Hennie (I hope I read her nameplate right!), the barista at the Starbucks nearest me. Early this year I was taking care of academic stuff there, and ordered enough times for her to remember my name ("Dean, as in dean's lister"). A week or so later, I believe, I was at Trinoma with Katz and her high school classmates. We were standing outside Dairy Queen, taking pictures, when all of a sudden I heard someone call out, "Hey, it's Sir Dean!" It was Hennie, out with friends.

(You know how they say it's weird seeing your teachers outside of school? Apparently it's the same for baristas outside of Starbucks.)

So anyway, after that I didn't go back to Starbucks for maybe four or five months (because I went home for the summer). Last night, Hennie was making the drinks, and when she saw me at the bar waiting for my grande classic latte, she went, "Oh, ngayon lang kita nakita ulit (Oh, this is the first time I've seen you in a while)!"

No glowing orbs and jets of water.

Forgotten Photo 02: Kuma-crime story

We went to the Batasan Police Station last year to find a crime worth writing a story on for my Intro to Journ class. Upperclassmen had suggested Batasan to us, as they said that was where all the action was. Getting our stories wasn't so hard, but we did have to wait for the red tape to do its thing, and it took a letterhead to give us access to records that are supposed to be public in the first place.

This year we had to do another crime story, this time for our News Reporting class. We went to the UP Diliman Police, and the kind officer at the desk allowed us to look at the blotter (mostly just thefts and vehicular accidents) without fussing.

Psych 101 midterms finally over with!

(After being postponed because of the weather of the past two weeks.)

OMG, he's still alive...and teaching Psych at UP Diliman, apparently.

Post-midterms burger. Thinking is exhausting.

SKITTLEEEESSS. Katz can name all the colors from memory.

The new CommRes lobby at Maskom

Fierce, diba? The first floor lobby of the Annex building (whose official name has been "Press Freedom Hall" since November of last year) is being renovated, too.

Overhead projection is the shizz.

The last time I remember seeing overhead projection (OHP) in use was in grade school, at a journalism workshop. It's no less cool four years later.

Six hours at Starbucks Technohub with Freud, Skinner et. al.

Reviewing for this week's Psychology 101 exam. At least they spelled my name right, though not without some difficulty it seems.

All-time favorite: yangchao and pork siomai, with chopsticks please.

Pauwi.

I'd meant to take a picture of the food before eating it, but was so famished I forgot, so eto, aftermath nalang.

Sometimes I still can't believe this is where I study.

So I'm taking up Military Science to fulfill my NSTP requirement.

It was partly at Katz's behest, but I thought MilSci would be fun—rappelling and that. When I enlisted the subject, I thought the most difficult thing we would have to do in the course was climb down the slapdash wood-and-metal-scaffolding structure on the slope in front of the gym.

Apparently it's kind of like training for Hell. For two semesters. To pass the course we have to go on, and survive, a two-day-and-two-night survival camping trip to UP Los Baños at the end of next semester. We'll have to cook our own food, find our way using a compass and a map and pretend our teammates are injured and transport them between cliffs and ravines.

Sounds fun!

Chit Estella writes 30

UP College of Mass Communication professor and journalist Lourdes Estella Simbulan died yesterday in a crash along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City. She was 54.

I never had the honor of being Prof. Simbulan's student, but as a Journalism major I join the department, the college, the university and the industry in mourning her demise.

Ma'am Simbulan, requiescat in pace.