Luis V. Teodoro, esteemed journalist and educator, passes away at 81

CMFR mourns the passing of Professor Luis V. Teodoro. He succumbed to a heart attack on March 13, 2023, shortly before midnight. He was 81. He joined CMFR in 1995 as deputy executive director and editor of the Philippine Journalism Review Reports (PJRR). A member of the Board of Trustees, he was a valued consultant for the work of the Center, a true and loyal friend of all who worked there. 

Teodoro was a political prisoner in the early years of Martial Law. In the seventies, he worked as editor of the alternative news agency Philippine News and Features. After 1986, he wrote for and edited publications including the National Midweek magazine and the daily broadsheet Today. In 2007, he started writing a weekly column “Vantage Point” for BusinessWorld, which published his latest and last piece last March 9.

He authored several books on mass media, journalism and press freedom, including the recipient of the 2015 National Book Award for Journalism, “Vantage Point: The Sixth Estate and Other Discoveries,” and “Mass Media Laws and Regulations in the Philippines” co-written with lawyer Rosalinda Kabatay. Teodoro also contributed essays to numerous publications on these subjects. His award-winning work as fiction writer has been collected in “The Undiscovered Country” published in 2006 by the University of the Philippines (UP) Press.

He began his teaching career in UP as a faculty member of the College of Arts and Letters’ Department of English and Comparative Literature, where he taught courses in Philippine literature in English and fiction writing.  He joined the faculty of the UP College of Mass Communication (UPCMC), where he taught journalism, the political economy of the media, and contemporary issues on communication. He served as UPCMC dean for two terms from 1994 to 2000. A lifelong educator, he was teaching courses online at the UPCMC during the pandemic, and returned to the classroom when face-to-face classes resumed this year. Many of his students recall his gift for teaching which inspired them to take up journalism and be leaders in the field. 

Teodoro was also founding chairperson of AlterMidya, an umbrella organization of alternative news organizations formed in 2014. In 2019, he received the Titus Brandsma Freedom of the Press Award, a recognition for outstanding media and communications practitioners given by the Order of Carmelites in the Philippines. The award recognized that “His sharp analyses in his columns often step on the interests of the powerful and the mighty, and necessarily so as the overall thrust of his media advocacy is a democratized access to information for a learned society.”

A pillar of Philippine journalism, Teodoro’s combined careers as an academic and journalist is unparalleled. His place as an esteemed colleague and friend is unique. CMFR will forever uphold his contribution to the work of building of a free and independent press and its role in Philippine democracy.