The journalist as migrant

A reporter finds happiness in an unlikely niche
The journalist as migrant
n By Divina C. Paredes

”Journalism… gives you a front-row seat to life and all its opportunities.”
Charles L. Overby, Freedom Forum, 1995

AUCKLAND—While finalizing the cover of a recent issue of CIO New Zealand magazine, I settled for a glossy black backdrop with the headlines in gold.
It was the magazine’s annual leadership edition and I wanted the cover to be simple but striking. As a final touch, I decided to print on the right side of the page the names of leaders from across all sectors and persuasions.
And that was how Cory Aquino appeared on the cover of a management magazine for information and communication technology executives in New Zealand. Her picture also appeared in the inside pages, alongside those of Sir Edmund Hillary, Fidel Castro, Bono, and Nelson Mandela, among others, in an article about “making every leadership moment matter.”
I do not know how many of our kababayans have read or will come across this particular edition of CIO New Zealand but, for me, putting those little details in the magazine was significant.
I wanted a Filipino leader to be included in that list, and I deliberately chose someone who would be familiar to a Kiwi (New Zealander) audience. I also noted how Mrs. Aquino had recently spoken out—when others of her class were hesitant to do so—against the excesses of the current political leadership in the Philippines. Moreover, New Zealand was among the first governments to recognize President Aquino after the People Power Revolt in 1986.

Malacañang days
I was covering Malacañang during those days and interviewed the then New Zealand prime minister, David Lange, one of the state leaders who met with the newly installed President Aquino. Lange cracked jokes with the members of the Malacañang Press Corps and posed in front of the huge painting of Ferdinand Marcos showing the exiled dictator flexing his muscles.
[As a postscript, when I applied for immigration, the officer at the New Zealand consulate asked me to provide evidence that I had worked as a journalist in the Philippines. I submitted my front-page interview with Lange.]
Back in those days, I would never have imagined packing my bags to go overseas—not to attend a conference, cover an event, or join a press sortie—but as a migrant, and to opt for a country so far removed politically and geographically from the United States, the top destination for would-be Filipino migrants.
When my family moved to Auckland six years ago, my first job was as a writer for MIS (Managing Information Strategies), a monthly magazine that focuses on the management concerns of information technology (IT) directors.

Take a ‘sickie’
The new job meant a raft of adjustments. Though I have written business features prior to moving to New Zealand, covering the information and communication technology sector full-time was a first for me. I had to learn the industry acronyms and its key players. The thriller novelist Stephen King once wrote, “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs.” If you had asked me during my first month on the job what the road to hell was like, I would have said it was paved with IT acronyms.
There was also the issue of language, both written and spoken. I have been writing for English publications for most of my working life, but we Filipinos are used to what we call American English, including its idioms. Thus, I found the stylebook of The Economist particularly useful as it has a section on the differences between British and American English usage.
As for day-to-day conver-sations, when a workmate tells you he is “crooked,” that means he is unwell and may have to take a “sickie” or sick leave.  When someone says “I haven’t seen you in yonks,” it means it has been quite a while since you met. There is also the matter of pronunciation. Kiwis, for instance, pronounce words like head as “heed” or pen as “pin.”

Other adjustments
I looked at all these adjustments positively, for they helped me get to know better the new country that my family and I now call home.
I also immersed myself in more community (read: non-work related) activities. I am a volunteer for the Bayview Community Center, helping distribute its monthly newsletters and attending monthly meetings where we discuss issues like the child care center and social groups for the elderly and young parents. I also contribute regularly to the Filipino community newspaper Diario Filipino.
In 2004, I became editor of MIS magazine. The MIS team is compact but its members are committed and brimming with ideas to put the magazine forward and push boundaries.
In 2005, MIS beat other magazines with bigger editorial staffs and budgets when it was named the best trade professional magazine in the 2005 Qantas Media Awards. The judges commented: “An excellent magazine that delivers to its audience.  MIS looks good, is easy to read, includes good breakout quotes and ‘learn’ boxes.”
Fast forward to September 2006. Our publisher Fairfax Business Media acquired the license to publish CIO, our competitor, and merged it with MIS. I was appointed editor of the new magazine.
So Mondays to Fridays, I write about issues concerning networked enterprises, or how the heads of the IT departments of these organizations meet the challenges of “managing people and technology.”

Low-tech weekends
Weekends, however, are decidedly “low-tech.” Typical activities for me would be baking bread from scratch with my son Dino as an able assistant, pruning the roses in our small garden, taking walks with my family on the beach, checking out parks around Auckland, and scouring for bargains in flea markets.
These weekend downtimes are imperative for me. Indeed, for those working in the media, there is the tendency— nay, the danger— of letting work intrude into other areas in one’s life.
I find it interesting, even ironic, that I was able to leave this mindset when I moved down under and started covering the information and communication technology beat—the same sector that made this 24/7/365 connectivity a reality. These days, I reserve that kind of connectivity for my family. n

Before migrating to New Zealand, Divina C. Paredes wrote for various newspapers and magazines, covering subjects that ranged from health and the sciences to politics. She also worked as public affairs director for a local government.  In her new job, she was recently named the inaugural Fronde Synergy Hi-Tech Journalist during the 2006 New Zealand Hi-Tech Awards sponsored by Pricewaterhouse-Coopers.

Comments are closed.