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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Growing up in The Standard

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I was 19 years old when I joined Manila Standard (which later became Manila Standard Today, and is now The Standard) in 2003. I received a call from then editor-in-chief Jullie Yap-Daza sometime in July that year, asking me—a fresh graduate covering the education beat for another newspaper—if I’d like to join her team. A month later, I was covering the Department of Foreign Affairs for the Standard, trying to keep up with diplomatic jargon and the need for formal wear, though I never got to wearing heels.

Being a journalist, as a colleague once described it, is the ultimate Peter Pan job – the stories that we write every day (no holidays, mind you, except during Holy Week, and only on days that Jesus Christ is believed to be dead) keep us young. This job has also kept us humble, knowing that our bylines are there only so our readers would know who to hold accountable for any inaccuracy or grammatical error, or worse, who to slap with a libel case.

In 2005, while I was finishing my post-graduate degree, I was transferred to the Malacañang beat. My decade-long coverage of the Palace allowed me to write memorable stories – the coup attempts against former President Gloria Arroyo; some of the strongest typhoons to hit the country (Milenyo, Reming, Ondoy, Sendong, and Yolanda); the Maguindanao massacre that left 58 civilians dead, including 32 media workers; and the Luneta hostage crisis during the first year of the Aquino administration, among many others.

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The job, for sure, has its perks – it gave me a chance to cover various events in countries as far as Russia and parts of Europe, and in most of Asia, thanks to the annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. A story I wrote on sweatshops in Myanmar and Cambodia afforded me a slot as finalist in the 2013 Asian Development Bank-Developing Asia Journalism Awards in Tokyo.

There were, of course, bad days just as there were good ones. I remember that after typhoon Sendong hit Mindanao, President Benigno Aquino III decided to make a quick visit to Iligan City from Cagayan de Oro. We took off – eight choppers at least – and in the middle of the flight, smoke filled our helicopter (the old Huey that media have, tongue in cheek as we ride them too, branded as flying coffins). And because my weird brain told me I should not die with an oily face, I took out my pressed powder and did a quick re-touch. Thankfully we were able to land safely, and the co-pilot announced, confidently, that it was just an electrical problem.

In the first quarter of 2015, the heavens (or to be more accurate, the gods-that-be in our new office in Makati) decided it was time to pay my dues by joining the desk. From the fast-paced coverage that marked my stint as a journalist, it was now time to be at the other side of the fence. As city editor, I would call my reporters to plan the coverage for the day, what stories to follow up, which angle to pursue. The desk is an entirely different battlefield. Or as a senior editor once said: Edit ruthlessly. Every word must pay for its passage.

For more than 12 years now, The Standard has been a second home to me, one that I have come to love. If my work has taught me anything, it is that the print media, in particular, and traditional media, in general, remain relevant today, if not more relevant, in the age of digital platforms and clickbait.

When super typhoon Yolanda hit the country, power lines were down and there was no Internet connection. When disaster strikes, people still turn to traditional media. Transistor radios were the only source of news of Yolanda victims during the first few days after the super typhoon struck.

These are exciting times for print journalists who must ensure that the edge of the medium remains. This means providing context, making sense of cold facts, and sharpening our analytical tools. Since our medium does not allow real time correction that is enjoyed by our online counterparts (if we make a mistake, we issue a late erratum the next day), print journalists are required, more than ever, to get our facts straight. There is more demand to produce exclusive stories.

The call for us is to rise to the occasion even as we embrace technological advances. The digitization of media is an opportunity to come back to our core mission and values: empowering citizens by providing them with the news and information necessary to make informed decisions in society.

This is what we aim to do every day at The Standard. This is what makes battling the awful EDSA traffic to get to our Makati office worth it. This is why I remain a journalist.

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