DOOMSDAY scenarios of a “dying newspaper industry” are exaggerated and the press will continue to thrive as long as there’s a crying need for truth and information, said Josephine “Pennie” Azarcon-Dela Cruz, executive Editor of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.
A member of Varsitarian’s Batch 1976, Dela Cruz was keynote speaker of this year’s Inkblots: the UST National Campus Journalism Fellowship, the annual campus press meeting organized by the Varsitarian.
Dela Cruz urged Inkblots fellows to continue the practice of a crusading but responsible press.
“Inkblots is not about to dry up,” she declared.
Proving her words true, a total of 242 campus writers, some coming from as far as Davao and General Santos City in the South and Cagayan in the North, graced the ninth installment of the yearly campus press gathering. Held last October 22-24 at the Thomas Aquinas Research Center (TARC) and AMV-College of Accountancy Building, the event also marked the start of the Varsitarian’s roving history exhibit, The Struggle and the Glory, in celebration of its upcoming 80th Anniversary.
The opening was graced by Acting UST Rector Fr. Rolando De la Rosa, O.P., who is also a Varsitarian alumnus like Dela Cruz.
“I encourage all our young journalists to adhere to the true, good, and beautiful,” De la Rosa said.
Uncapping the pen
Philippine Daily Inquirer reporter Christian Esguerra tackled advanced newswriting.
“We try to make sense of chaos,” the former Varsitarian editor said. “Even though we can’t be sure if it is the right one, it is our job to make legitimate attempts to find out what the truth is.”
The lecture was followed by a mock press conference with Msgr. Pedro Quitoria, spokesperson of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines and a graduate of the UST Ecclesiastical Faculties.
Inquirer Magazine associate editor Ruel De Vera talked about culture and lifestyle Writing.
“You need to be schizo-phrenic—with multiple personalities, even,” he said, stressing that the writer must representing everybody’s tastes and styles.
De Vera said lifestyle writing can stand its own against the other pages of the newspaper.
“You can take comfort that somebody somewhere is reading your work in a quiet, Sunday morning without the need to rush,” he said.
Concluding the event’s first day was Tempo’s entertainment editor and Faculty of Arts and Letters professor Nestor Cuartero. He emphasized the feature writer’s social responsibility to inspire his readers.
“The landmark of a good story is that it should be able to inspire your readers. If you can connect or leave a good impression to your reader, then it means your story is good,” he said.
Cuartero ended his seminar with a mock press conference featuring actor and matinee idol Diether Ocampo, whom the Inkblots fellows happily interviewed regarding his on- and off-screen engagements.
The fellows learned that Ocampo had parlayed his popularity into founding and managing the Kabataan Inyong Dapat Supertahan (Kids) Foundation, which provides scholarships and assistance to poor children.
He said he founded the charity when a child with a serious illness he had been helping died. The incident, he said, impressed upon him the need to sustain and institutionalize support for poor children.
Inkblots’ opening day ended with a cocktails at the Tan Yan Kee Student Center. The Varsitarian hosted the cocktails to welcome the fellows to UST.
Doing a refill
The traditional lecture on investigative journalism was delivered by Jaileen Jimeno, deputy executive director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. A
“God gave us two ears and one mouth so that we could listen twice as much as we speak,” she said. “That should be the interviewer’s article of faith.”
A news writing workshop was next facilitated by PDI senior news reporter and UST Journalism graduate Volt Contreras. His seminar included a discussion of the inverted pyramid news treatment, a run-through of the English language, and the composition of news leads.
But despite the depth of the subject of his lecture, Contreras’s advice for the fellows was simple: “Improve your vocabulary with verbs, not adjectives.”
Poet and writer Michael Coroza also returned as speaker for Filipino Writing.
A former Varsitarian Filipino editor and a regular panelist in the UST National Writers Workshop, Coroza emphasized the importance of using the Filipino language when it comes to educating those who could not understand English. He also condemned the way most Filipinos look down on their language.
“Ang palaging takot [ng Pilipino], kailangang mag-Ingles, kasi naniniwala [sila] na Ingles ang wika ng awtoridad at kapangyarihan,” he said.
Making a comeback the seventh time around was sports columnist Joaquin “Quinito” Henson, Inkblots’ resident sports guru. In his lecture, he endorsed the importance of sports writing to interest non-enthusiasts to sports.
Henson likened athletics to life’s struggles.
“We want to identify ourselves with the winners [in a game] because we want to win in our [own] lives,” he said.
Along with Henson was UST Men’s Basket-ball coach Pido Jarencio, who was the subject of another mock press conference. This was followed by an on-the-spot sports writing contest wherein Alessi Brugada, a freshman nursing student from Remedios Trinidad Romualdez Memorial Schools-Makati Medical Center, came out on top. Her article, plus four more others, was featured in Henson’s column in the Philippine Star last October 30.
Last traces of ink
Held at the AMV-College of Accountancy building, the third day of the event started with four parallel sessions: Photojournalism, Cartooning, and Column and Broadcast Writings.
PDI photographer Ernie Sarmiento presented a pictorial slideshow of the Do’s and Don’ts of Photojournalism. His talk also included a gallery of the precise angles and backgrounds that make pictures banner-worthy.
“Photography is all about lighting,” Sarmiento summarized.
PDI cartoonist Lyra Garcellano, on the other hand, encouraged the fellows not to worry if their drawing techniques do not comply with the mainstream, as long as “the drive to work is there.”
“Just because there is some style that hates you doesn’t mean that it’s all over,” the creator of the comic strip Atomo and Weboy said.
In the neighboring room, PDI columnist Conrado de Quiros was seemingly down-playing his craft: “Column Writing is just a branch of writing in general.” The catch, however, was when he revealed his idea on writing itself, which he parallelized with music: “Everyone enjoys it, but not everyone can create it.”
For his strong suit, de Quiros gave two things opinion writers need—their mastery of their subject and their passion for it.
He especially underlined the second one. “Consider story time with your friends: while talking, you’re gasping, panting, making interesting sounds. With that, people will listen to you.”
Meanwhile, Jim Libiran’s lecture was a reality-check on the glamour that Broadcast Writing seemed to have. The head of productions for ABC-5’s News and Public Affairs and the director of the award-winning independent digital feature Tribu talked about the limited opportunities for writing for TV and the blatant commercialization in broadcast.
But Libiran said broadcast needs good writers.
“The basic of journalism is not technique, but story-telling.”
When the fellows went to the hall for the day’s plenary session, BusinessWorld sub-editor and former Varsitarian editor in chief Felipe Salvosa II lectured on campus paper management, discussing laws that govern campus journalism.
Campus papers should adopt the “best practices” developed by their more established peers, he said.
“I believe we don’t have to reinvent the wheel to manage our newspapers effectively,” Salvosa explained.
Afterwards, Faculty of Arts and Letters professor and former New York Times correspondent Alice Colet-Villadolid discussed the ethics of Philippine journalism by giving a rundown of the newspapers that followed Tomas Pinpin’s pioneering pamphlet of the 1600s.
“Nationalism, protection of the weak—these are the values that we saw in Philippine Journalism through the years,” she observed.
Meanwhile, in the panel discussion about the hazards of “infotainment,” or the tendency of the television programming to blur the distinction between news and public affairs and show business, the fellows interacted with GMA-7 documentary-maker Howie Severino and PDI entertainment columnist and editor Nestor Torre.
The two panelists also chorused their displeasures on the popularity of the “nonsensencial” on TV, which Severino called “trashy.”
“Media should provide vital information to the public,” he said. “It should offer not just what the public wants but also what the public needs.”
“Journalism must exercise a leadership role,” Severino said. “It should discern what the people needs to improve their lives and not just simply what makes them feel comfortable.”
Torre cautioned against TV shows such as Totoo TV and the US The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He said that these shows satirize news and public shows and are basically entertainment programs, not journalism shows.
To formally end the three-day affair, a fellowship night was held at the Tan Yan Kee Student Center where the fellows enjoyed delicious food and warm company. The fellows were later awarded certificates of participation.
Though they came from different provinces, backrounds, and motivations, the fellows said that press practice is both a calling and a responsibility.
