Everything I know, I learned on the job
This article will appear in the July-August 2009 issue of PJR Reports.
EVERYTHING I KNOW,
I LEARNED ON THE JOB
By RG Cruz
By November 21 this year, I will have spent exactly 8 years in the profession of journalism. It was in November 21 of 2001, about seven months after graduating from the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication, that I landed my first job. In the months between my graduation and being hired, I confidently mass mailed my resume to all the media outfits I could find here and abroad in hopes I would land that elusive first job. I was even a bit cocky, thinking that my education from the country’s top mass media school would land me a job just like that and put me on the fast track to a bright career.
Boy, was I dead wrong.
Don’t get me wrong. With all due respect to my professors and the institutions inside the State University, they gave me the best education that could be offered at THAT time.
I had a rude awakening when I got my first job and realized that none of what I picked up in school would help me even if to at least just coast along. I could even dare say that most, if not all of the skills I have now as a journalist I learned on the job, and not from school.
On a very regular basis I have been invited to give career talks in many schools, been interviewed by graduating students for their theses—all on topics going along the lines of how journalists become the journalists that they are. My answer has always been consistent: during your formative days in the profession, you spend a considerable amount of time “un-learning” what you picked up in college.
I majored in Broadcast Communication—a technology-driven field. These days to be a competent broadcaster, you must not only be able to perform on air (whether for radio or TV) but also be able to perform off the air (that’s off camera work if you’re on TV).
Most students get into broadcasting thinking about the glamour and power, and maybe even the money of being on air and having a live audience at home. What they fail to realize is that a lot of what you see on TV or hear on the radio is the product of team effort—a team with many functions.
I have always believed that this is something that should have been discussed in school. During my time at the CMC, yes, productions for radio or TV were emphasized to be team efforts. Yet it must be pointed out that that we had very cursory training in the skills that were required to make being a member of such a team a much more fulfilling experience.
For example: for our basic radio and TV production classes, we trained on obsolete equipment. I mean in 2001, who was using non-computerized broadcast equipment? While knowing the basics of non-computerized broadcast equipment is good, the reality is that students, upon entering the workplace after graduation, have to learn a new set of skills—when what they learned in school should be something they should just be supplementing when they get to the workplace.
Another point: Audio and video editing is a basic skill all broadcasters should have because practically everything that goes on air whether on radio or TV goes through some sort of audio-video editing—that’s splicing sound bites and images for you non broadcast majors—in order to make a cohesive piece. During my time, basic audio-video editing was just an elective.
To make matters worse, THAT elective was taught using obsolete editing equipment nobody even uses anymore. Today, audio video editing is done on Avid, or final cut, computers. Back then we were taught with linear editing machines where tapes are manually and literally spliced and recorded over. These days networks and media companies are already going digital and going into tapeless workflows.
The mechanics of digital audio video productions were also something we just learned in our companies when this is a basic skill all broadcasters should have.
But enough about the technical side of it. Let’s go into the policy and philosophical side of mass media education.
Ethics for one. Mass media ethics is actually universal—same principles apply regardless of whether you’re in movie production, broadcasting, print journalism, research or new media like the Internet. And yet what we got in the broadcast communication curriculum—compared to what CMC journalism majors were getting—didn’t reflect the ethical dilemmas that mass media practitioners face every day. There were very cursory discussions (read: just one subject, one semester in four years) on ethical situations in the workplace that sometimes span years before being solved. Bribery? Do you know there are many ways to go about bribery in the media and to make it appear that you’re not being bribed when you are actually being bribed—if you think about the real intent of why you’re being given what you’re being given?
You’d be surprised if you ask how today’s practicing journalists have twisted and contorted the principles of mass media ethics to excuse their benefiting from perks and privileges. Many of them are either unaware or simply ignore both the letter and the spirit of the ethical principle in favor of the convenience that the letter of the law, so to speak, offers. The ethical training during my time as a broadcast communication major was certainly not enough to build us good, working moral compasses. The ethical principles taught were more on the general rather than the cognitive side of the actual ethical dilemmas that confront journalists daily.
Take broadcast journalism education for another example. In my time, mass communication students got two journalism subjects but only one was mandatory—Journalism 101, which as the name suggests is more about the basics of journalism in general—which is basically more print than broadcast oriented. The other journalism subject, Broadcast Journalism 133, was an elective. And again, to make things worse, neither course, while giving us the basics, addressed questions on, for example, how do you build a proper newscast, one that doesn’t cause undue alarm with both what the news is about and how you say the news? How do you build a proper documentary, a proper field report?
There was not a single course on beat reporting, and on doing special reports, field camerawork and building up a network of sources. What are the acceptable and unacceptable practices?
The new media should be a course—nah, a major by itself. Considering that the Internet has become as pervasive as traditional media, it also deserves its own field of study. Furthermore, the study of new media should factor in the convergence strategies of most media content providers.
Back in my day, we were all required to intern before graduation—that’s 100 hours each for TV and radio. Most of my classmates tried out in the big companies and big networks, where the interns are relegated to mostly menial tasks like being gofers for the staff. That—I don’t know how useful that would be. Big companies may not always be inclined to let students do something more significant than getting coffee, running for something, or photocopying. Smaller companies on the other hand, such as the government networks, since they are badly funded, have fewer staff, and need all the help they can get—and so will be more willing to let students go through the entire gamut of skills one will need. Believe me, I learned more useful skills in my 100 hours in my radio internship than in most of the classes I took in UP.
Lastly, I feel that mass media education can devote more time and effort on the power of the media to shape the life of an entire nation—or even of world. Mass media is power, power wielded only by the hands of a few. We ought to make sure it is wielded more responsibly.
Mass media is such a dynamic field. It changes with the changes in technology. Skills evolve. So do ethical dilemmas and practices. Yet, the power mass media wields will always be the same—a very powerful combination of power over the minds, hearts and actions of an entire nation. One stroke of the pen, one word on air, one dramatic picture—whether it be on TV, radio, print or the Internet—can send stock markets crashing, cause rallies and protests on the streets, put a military and police on war footing, even start regime change in some instances. We better make sure this power is wielded very well or else we will get the society we deserve.
RG Cruz is a reporter for ABS-CBN 2 and news presenter for the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC).
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Lots of truth in this article, but I’d like to say that my education helped me A LOT when I transitioned to the real world. I graduated from the same college as the author did, but much more recently, and from a different course. While there are a lot of things to be improved in the state university, I believe college in general is not supposed to spoon feed us with what we exactly need for work. It’s supposed to equip us with disciplines that will help us perform and adapt when we get to “the real world.”
The education I received from UP equipped me with a lot of these disciplines. There was definitely an adjustment phase, but I did not enter the media industry feeling as lost as what was described here.
Personally, I think a lot of the nattering about how college doesn’t prepare one for real life comes from people who expect to have it easy, or have had it easy, in real life. I also hear a lot of this from people who treated college like a game. They would arrange their schedules around their social lives, and pick professors who gave high grades despite sub par teaching.
Maybe I’m abnormal, but I took college with an eye for learning, and picked classes with the best subjects and professors I could find. Even if that meant I took six classes under the same professor. And even if that meant I had the ugliest class schedule ever. (Four and a half hours between classes, anyone?)
For sure, the system’s full of problems. But I think individual students should try to make the best of what they’re given as well. I can’t help but wonder if, say, a farmer’s daughter would’ve made better use of the author’s cheap state-sponsored education.
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