Reporters and editors take a good look at journalism schools: Are They Good Enough?

Reporters and editors take a good look at journalism schools
Are They Good Enough?
By Venus L. Elumbre and Jose Bimbo F. Santos

OUR YEARS of journalism school should prepare future reporters for their job. All those years spent learning how to write the news, knowing about the history and development of the press, and discussing ethical issues should be enough to produce journalists who can sail smoothly into their chosen craft.

But are those years really enough?

PJR Reports inter-viewed several editors and journalists and found out that the answers are as varied as the people who were asked.

“Except for a few, (journalism) graduates are not really equipped in the area of writing, style, and grammar,” says Artemio Engracia Jr., news editor of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Poor grammar and deficient writing skills are just some of the common problems.

“Graduates of media-related courses are often clueless about news gathering and operations,” observes editor-in-chief Jojo Robles of Manila Standard Today in his column (“School daze,” July 17, 2006).

These observations raise the question—do journalism schools adequately provide aspiring journalists the training they need?

Good foundation
“I think I was given a good foundation in the University of the Philippines (UP),” says Newsbreak staff writer Carmela Fonbuena, who earned her journalism degree in 2003.

Fonbuena says she was fortunate to have a good internship program. It was her internship in Newsbreak that trained her “to look beyond a story, look at its impact, what it means, and the underlying circumstances around it.”

Fonbuena says it also helped that she had professors from the media industry who taught students what the reality was like out there.

University of Santo Tomas (UST) graduate Ronald Lim also thinks his journalism degree prepared him well for his job.

“I think I’ve been adequately prepared because I found the transition from college to my work environment pretty smooth and easy,” says Lim, who covers the youth and campus beat for the Inquirer.

The little things that Lim, who is now two years on his job, learned in UST turned out to be what were most helpful to his career.

“I learned how to conduct an interview as well as to take down notes. I didn’t think it would do me any good when I was in college, but you quickly realize that something as basic as note-taking is very important for a reporter,” Lim says.

Despite hurdling his first year on the beat without major setbacks, Inquirer’s DJ Yap thinks he was not completely prepared for the pressures of the job.

“On my first week as a reporter, I was a fish out of water. I made mistakes, missed deadlines, got some of my facts wrong. But once I got the hang of it, familiarized myself with the surroundings and got acquainted with the people, the training kicked in, and I began to apply the things that I had known all along but had forgotten in panic,” says Yap, who graduated with a journalism degree from UP in 2004.

Sink or swim
“In-expect ko na mahihirapan ako pero ’di ganun kahirap,” is how fresh journalism graduate Czeriza Valencia remembers her first few weeks as a reporter for Malaya.

When she began working last April, her editor’s welcome remarks served as a mental bookmark for her initial travails: “Okay, Czeriza, I’m throwing you now to the pond and it’s up to you to sink or swim. Welcome to Malaya.”

Although Valencia has a journalism degree from UST, she also experienced difficulties when she started. Only in her work did she discover important elements in reporting, something Valencia wished she was taught in school.

She wishes she had been taught more skills like “basic coverage—who to talk to or what to look for in your stories.” She  regrets that not much was taught about putting stories in their proper context.

“Sana rin mas tinuruan pa kami nung pagsulat ng mga basic stories, like police stories, sports stories, political stories,” Valencia says.

Importance of Filipino
A GMA-7 reporter after graduating with a journalism degree from UP in 2005, Isa Lorenzo thinks her training in print journalism did not prepare her enough for TV reporting. Although the journalism curriculum in UP requires students to take an introductory course in broadcasting, it offers a three-unit broadcast journalism subject only as an elective.

Lorenzo, who now works at the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, also notes that the curriculum uses the English language. Since some journalism graduates go into TV reporting, which is mostly in Filipino, journalism students should also be taught how to write in Filipino, she adds.

Submitting stories on time is another virtue that must be learned beforehand. “In a business that survives on meeting deadlines, it should be standard practice in journalism schools or departments to train students to write well—and quickly,” says Yap.

“When I was starting out, my biggest problem was turning in stories on time. It took me weeks to get the hang of it,” says Yap. “Back in college, we were often asked to submit an assignment in one or two days. It’s a comfortable deadline for most students, but it’s nothing like how a real newsroom works.”

On the other hand, editors emphasize the need for schools to strengthen the teaching of the basics of journalism.

Besides improving writing skills, Engracia suggests that journalism schools require students to specialize in other areas like political science, economics, and business.  Sports writing, he says, should be an elective course.

For Manila Bulletin associate editor Ramon Francisco, journalism schools should focus on ethics and internship programs.

No license to write
Unlike engineering, nursing, and law, journalism is one of the few careers that require no license for one to practice. Even as the press has been tagged as the “Fourth Estate” in recognition of its power, getting into the media can be easy.

In a Philippine Journalism Review article in 1996 (“Not just another job”), former UP journalism department chair Carolina Malay said training in journalism schools is useful but not really essential because there are people who are skilled in writing and do not have to be taught.

Also, reporters without a journalism degree do not differ much from those who have one—at least according to some newspaper editors.

“Siguro sa desk mas lamang ’yung may journalism degree because of the technical skills pero sa beat reporting pareho lang din halos,” says BusinessMirror news editor Dionisio Pelayo.

According to Engracia, one does not need to go to journalism school to be a good journalist. “I’ve seen graduates of other courses who turned out to be good journalists because they have an inherent passion for news writing,” he observes.

That there are successful journalists who have no journalism degree, or any degree for that matter, seems to challenge the perception that one must have the requisite academic background for the profession that one wishes to practice. A prime example is the late National Artist Nick Joaquin, who did not have any degree yet managed to become renowned in his craft. Joaquin even led an experimental type of reportage called “literary journalism,” or reporting a factual event using literary devices (See related story, “Teaching Journalism,” p. 20).

Raymund Antonio, a Manila Bulletin reporter who graduated from UP in 2004 with a degree in Comparative Literature, claims he was inspired by Joaquin.

What it takes
Knowing that earning a living is not easy when one is a literary writer, Antonio opted to apply in various newspapers after graduation. It did not take long before he received a reply from the Bulletin, but the literature graduate began having second thoughts.

He ignored the first call from the Bulletin “kasi wala nga akong alam sa news writing at medyo uncomfortable pa ako noon.” But after a few weeks, Bulletin called again to ask if he would like to take the entrance test, and this time, Antonio said yes.

Antonio passed the exam for Bulletin reporters and eventually started his career as a journalist, but not without difficulty.

“Two months akong nawawala noong umpisa kasi hindi ko masyadong alam ang gagawin,” he says as he recalls having a hard time finding the right angle for a story.

But lack of preparation did not deter the would-have-been littérateur.  Although he would see his editors shaking their heads as they read his stories, Antonio kept reading the newspapers everyday until he learned how to write the news. A newswriting seminar sponsored by the Bulletin also helped, as did books on journalism.

“Experience at initiative ang nagturo sa akin. ’Yung kumpiyansa nandun din kasi inisip ko lahat naman ng bagay natututunan. May urgency din kasi sa akin na gusto kong matuto,” Antonio says.

Going into newspaper reporting was something that Jeffrey Valisno never imagined he would do after graduating with a degree in European Languages (major in International Relations) from UP.

Before joining BusinessWorld in 2001, Valisno had no background in journalism, save for being editor of student papers in elementary and high school. But he says he easily adjusted to his job.

All it takes, according to Valisno, is awareness of what the readers need.

“Sometimes the questions that I ask are the ones that readers are asking. Hindi mo naman kailangang maging cum laude ng ganitong eskuwela para lang matanong ang dapat itanong,” he says.

Even then, Valisno went through three months of training before covering the beats.

Known for hiring non-journalism graduates, BusinessWorld trains its new reporters on business writing and analyzing the stock market, the peso-dollar exchange rate, and financial statements.

Change course
Quite a number of people end up as reporters without intending to.

Alder Almo was pursuing a childhood dream to become a priest when he entered the UST seminary in 2000. But he also joined the school publication, The Varsitarian. Soon, he found himself skipping the activities at the seminary to attend the press work for the paper. After graduating with a degree in Classical Philosophy, Almo joined ABC-5 as a sports writer.

“I was just fortunate to have joined the official publication of our school and that honed my journalism skills,” says Almo.

He looks back to his days with the university paper and credits  it with teaching him how to manage his time and be resourceful in gathering stories.

“Although I didn’t have any background in mass communication, I found it easy to adjust with the help of my superiors and co-production staff,” says Almo.

Still, Antonio thinks he might have had an easier time if he had a journalism degree.

“Siguro kung may journalism degree, wala nang masyadong adjustment kasi alam mo na kaagad ang gagawin mo,” he says.

And there are other things for which Valisno was not prepared.  In one of the beats that he covered, he realized that “certain people will really take advantage of you.”

“Nabukulan” is how reporters call it. A journalist does not get a share of the money distributed by a news source and learns that he is on the list of beneficiaries.

“I felt bad kasi you’re trying to be ethical tapos biglang isasali ka ng ibang tao,” he says.

“If I were a journalism graduate, I would have known that early on,” he says.

In contrast, those who had been to journalism school seem to know what to do when confronted with ethical dilemmas.

“I knew about corruption, the so-called envelopmental or ATM journalism. We heard all about that in college,” says Yap. “Strangely enough, in my two years, I have had only one experience in being offered a financial incentive for a story I wrote. I declined, of course.”

Valencia credits the values instilled by UST  for her survival.

“’Yung values ng UST na-apply ko 100 percent, especially ’yung pursuit of truth,” says Valencia.

Shades of gray
With ethics discussions based mostly on theories, Fonbuena and Valencia believe students must be taught what to do when a dilemma arises.

According to Fonbuena, it was not discussed in school whether it is all right to be friendly with sources or not. She asks: Does a reporter have to be friendly with a source to get a story? How should a reporter keep his or her distance from a source to be objective?

“Ang sinasabi lang naman ay you are not to accept bribes. But you are not told if eating with a source in a restaurant is okay. That’s where your judgment comes in,” says Fonbuena.

Valencia agrees. “Everything was black and white in school. How I wish they taught us how to confront gray areas like dealing with bribes. Of course, the black and white of it is not to accept it, pero hindi lang pala ganun kadali ‘yun,” she says.

“Medyo mahirap kasi nangyayari pero parang taboo pag-usapan. Nasa iyo lang kung magpapalamon ka sa sistema. In that light nakatulong din ’yung itinuturong idealism ng UST,” says Valencia.

That being the case, no journalism program fully prepares students for all the challenges that face them, according to Fonbuena and Lorenzo.

“College can only prepare you so much,” Fonbuena says. “You go to college and you’re taught theories, which are important because you have to know the general rule. Pagdating ng actual experience, that’s where you can decide where to go,” she explains.

Minnie Advincula, news editor of Malaya, believes that what really matters is for aspiring journalists to have the “passion to learn” and “a sense of moral ethics.” Journalism education “is only important as regards to the basics, and if you don’t have the background, it can be easily learned,” she says.

But Bulletin’s Francisco believes journalism education provides good training because it imposes discipline and exposes students to the demands of the job.

“It gives them inspiration for this perspiration,” he says.

Although reporter Valisno thinks that reporters who are not journalism graduates can perform their job well, a journalism degree is still worth taking for those who want to be in media.

“Nothing beats preparation,” he says.

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