I started working yesterday as news reporter for national broadsheet Malaya.
My first beat/assignment: Department of Foreign Affairs plus major embassies and international organizations.
I just checked the Malaya website and found two news articles bearing my byline:
I actually got accepted in Malaya last Tuesday during the second interview. On Wednesday, I signed the job offer and some other papers that needed my signature, obtained instructions from editors, acquainted myself with some SOPs at the desk, got my press card from personnel and applied for accreditation at the DFA public information service unit.
Yesterday was my first time to go to the DFA to work. Good thing, a DFA undersecretary passed by the media center and granted us a quick interview which later became my first story. Three more interviews followed, all of them over the cellphone and landline. I surfed for more information, bothered some friends from the movement to get even more relevant information, and tried my best to write in between.
Why the sudden, uhm, “career shift”? I wanted to outgrow myself skills-wise and thought about giving journalism a try.
Will this spell the end of my activist pursuits? No. Why should it? Hindi naman siguro bawal ang maging aktibistang peryodista. Whether I will succeed in this new enterprise and at the same time carry on legitimate causes, only time will tell. I sure hope so because I am not burning bridges with kasamas. I am not resigning from my post at TXTPower. I am not about to stop blogging and doing so Bloggers Kapihan with the BK Crew.
Is this about the pay? Hahahaha. Very funny.
There are several ways of looking at journalism. I’d rather not discuss the usual, more mainstream ones. What I want to be is a committed journalist, with high respect to the readers and the general public. He/she practices journalism with a purpose, and that purpose is to comfort the aflicted and to afflict the comfortable, or to empower citizens by trying to provide them relevant and sufficient information to make decisions crucial to family and nation. These are high-falluting words, nobles ones for sure, and I am saying them as a pledge.
Of course, there should always be a sense of fulfillment and I hope to get a hang of it in the next few days, weeks, months and years.
Salamat ng marami kay Ka Satur! I learned many things from you, apart from taking the progressive stand in journalism and in politics, about writing and editing, and in having good fashion sense.
To Wendell, Gerry and Ma’am Ellen who encouraged me to try Malaya, thank you!
Thanks also to Andrea, Joyce, Gerry, Ninotchka, Juli, Jang and Ina for lending me some of their precious time to hear me out and for the sound advice.