Press Play 2012

I think, this week was totally a blast. IAS and IN week plus Press Play! :)

This year's Press Play was in La Salle in celebration of their Media Week. This was the tie up of Ateneo's The Guidon and DLSU's The La Sallian. It was an advance seminar for students who are in line with Journalism. Some student publications present was UPHSD, Veritas, Mapua, Letran and FEU.

I definitely learned a lot from this seminar--especially dun sa Investigative Reporting/Journalism in relation with the New Media. Our resource speaker was Mr Ed Lingao of PCIJ and he was also a print and television personality since he wrote for Manila Times before and then a reporter in The Correspondents. Though he only had a short time to discuss everything to us, but he left us with a mark. He gave us tips, motivational messages and also POV's. During the Q&A, I asked him a lot of questions since Im interested with his topic and I see journalism and broadcasting as my last resort since Nursing is kinda...umm, declining. First I asked him if media (broadcasting companies, publications) would accept someone who didn't even finished a Comm course and it's only experience is working in the student publication. So Sir Lingao asked me back if why did I became so interested with journ or broadcasting and I answered him. I wont forget some of the things that he said like "Bago ka pumasok sa broadcasting, dapat unang-una marunong ka magsulat" and "It doesn't matter what you are (nursing student), but it is on how you do it (journalism)". He cited some examples and his own experiences. A producer won't choose you just because you are beautiful, has a fair complexion and white underarms (yeah, he said that), but he will first let you write and then it is the time that he will judge you. Then on field reporting, I also asked him his if he already had a contact on his assigned place, how does he formulate questions..etc. He let us watch some videos from early 2000's especially from ABC5 and ABS-CBN. We saw a lot of familiar faces including Zaldy Ampatuan ( yeah, I was able to recognize him since the setting was in Datu Aguak in Maguindanao. And he was so young then, you won't think that he'll gonna be the mastermind of maguindanao massacre after 9 years!).

Aside from that, he also tackled the rise of new media and the rapid decline of newspapers in the US. It's quite alarming and we teenagers forgot to read newspapers and totally rely on Yahoo which aggregates some top news in mainstream media like NY Times and the likes. According to a website, they predicted the death of newspapers after 5 years. They also made a study on the internet usage of the Filipinos. We are now tagged as the World's Largest Internet Users with 93.3%. Every Filipinos use the internet for 7 hours in a month but in reality, especially here in Manila, 7 hours is just a small number. We can stay up to 12 hours or more during weekends. Actually, we dont fully utilize the internet properly. Some people from the province go to internet shops just to update their statuses and play games but little did they know, they can get a lot of informations. INFORMATIONS in the internet are somewhat viral, even pictures and videos. Well, I cant elaborate more about that cause it seems like Im already lecturing. haha.

Going back, being in media is an adventure. Some may say that news is boring, but hey, you can do a lot of things with news. Others complain that their audiences (students) are very passive in the news that they are publishing, they dont even care on school issues, etc. An editor from a university shared that their newspaper are bring checked first by the admin of their school. The admin wants to make sure that the paper wont give any bad image with their school, but it seems like they (admin) are controlling the press freedom. I dont really know the whole story but it seems to be somewhat like that. Good thing in FEU, we have freedom to publish news which aims to inform the students with the current happenings and issues and the admin doesn't check our galley before we send it to the publishing house. I wonder if we are in the same situation with that editor. hmm. Hey! Where am I heading to? I thought this blog was about my adventures today?

Going back again, we had our lunch at their canteen. It has the same ambiance with EB canteen and the also have big fans like those on Pav 2. While roaming around, I somewhat felt that "college vibe/ambiance". I dunno why but I like La Salle's vibe, it's kinda different (well, maybe because it was a big university and it is in a different location. hmm, pwede). People there loves to wear statement shirts of DLSU and are very simple. The La Sallian's staffers are very hospitable especially their (very cute, ahem) ME and the funny girl (whose actions are very Maskom, like she called scissors as "jonting". COOL!) Someone from the staff looks like Enchong Dee (the slimmer version), and I thought that guy was a celebrity. haha.

On our second session, we agreed on Photojourn since majority of us went to IR and Jude was separated since he joined the Visual Arts seminar. To our surprise, the speaker, who was a La Sallian and Manila Bulletin photographer was an acquaintance of Jude! They knew each other during UAAP Men's basketball tournament last semester, and! he's an RR Garcia fan (can you believe that?! definitely cool!). He gave us basic knowledge on photojournalism and important points. I may not be a photographer but Im really interested on pictures (maybe because I easily remember pictures than words.. something like that.) He also shared his NINJA stories (Jude, alam mo yan!), which are quite risky and adventurous! "Photographers go to places that other people fears to go" (parang ganun ata).

After the seminar, I asked Kuya Andrew about Joel (my acquaintance from ITH) but they know him as Tim (his nickname) and I told them that we know each other months ago, and kinakamusta ko siya (we had a nice talk during ITH). And then, all of them said "Ayieee", and I just laughed. Their ME invited us for a snack and then attend also their party. I was thrilled since it's gonna be my first time to attend their party but unluckily, my advo mates wants to go home early. So we just roamed around the La Salle campus, seached for Bro Andrew Gonzales Bldg, had a mini picnic in front of Yuchengco Hall, explained about architecture kemps, then picture taking before going home. Buts and Marra made me laugh hard because of their conyo way of speaking, but contrary to what they are expecting, we all conversed in Filipino and they are not conyo. :) I also bought a lanyard with NERDY printed in it. I should've chose the SPORTY one since Im from sports section. hihi :)))

Thanks to Jude for taking the photos, Buts and Marra for making me laugh, Nikky, Glesa, Jan (with his fab hair. SUPER LIKE!), and Bambi (Happy Birthday!) :))) Hope to spend more time with you and more seminars to come!

--Yours truly, The Senior Citizen Lhea :)))