my mind wanders... on a thought of a green sunset

Sunday, July 23, 2006

The Seminar

We had a seminar with the first baby in the world.

That’s what his grandson thinks though. Our speaker, an editor for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, was with us during the Knowledge Trip with Guyito. It was a journalism seminar sponsored by the PDI together with the awarding of our own Guyito.[ The Guyito, painted by Romeo Forbes, was a priceless art encased in fibreglass and placed in front of the building.]

Mr. Ruben (I forgot his last name) tackled effective writing to all those present. He told us that reading and writing must always go together. He also told a lot of stories on how he made his life the journalistic way.

He recalled that when he was about our age, the room we were staying was not our current Media Center, but a classroom. It was not Manila Science High School during his time. Arellano High School stood there, and he was there. He was a student, like the people present. It had a lot of memories of the place. But the key memory was the library. He described it as having a thousand books shelved around you. He was a fond reader, and he would carry some paperbacks with him and read it while in traffic.

At heart, he really enjoyed writing. He would watch boxing games in his youth, and come home excited. He would write down all the things he saw during the match using a typewriter, as if the paper was going to be published the next day. Of course, as he said it, he would keep it in his drawer. The roaches ate it afterwards.

He reminded us of what speed mean to journalism. He went on with his story about the JFK assassination. The President’s car then was followed by a press bus. As soon as the shot was fired, a journalist immediately grabbed the phone, called his office and elbowed another reporter trying to pry the phone off. As soon as he told his colleagues that the President was shot and that the wound could be possibly fatal, he ripped the cord, and threw the phone away.

That reporter was the first to announce to the world that JFK was dead by the bullet. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

An account on what obligations mean to journalism is about President Bush being in an Iraqi desert. As a press bus travelled, the President rose from a bunker. A reporter, after seeing the figure rise above the sands, jumped from the running bus and ran towards the President. The reporter was the first person to interview the president that day.

Mr. Ruben then told us that the reporter was 75 years old. And she was a woman.

Fairness was also important, he said. Take all the sides’ views. News must not be one-sided. What one is telling to the world must be at all ways balanced.

Journalists avoid prolixity, he explained. One should be direct to the point. No redundancies. He wrote on our whiteboard some examples, like old adage, future plans and complete monopoly. He made a mistake and he erased it, and the ink smudged. Then someone realized that he wrote those words using an Apache pentel pen. The ink was blue, and it was permanent.

He also told us to approach this on a different way. News writing is not simple telling the 5 Ws and 1 H. He told us a story about a reporter in Sri Lanka who was writing about the tsunami. He was in a school, where there were no students. They were dead. As other journalists wrote about blah-blah-blah, this and that, this reporter wrote it this way.

NO SCHOOL BELL RANG IN THIS SCHOOL TODAY.

He really knew of how to write laterally sideways. He said, be creative. Don’t just tell what has happened. Leave an impression. Another story was about the Spanish president visiting a thrashed monument in London.

THE SPANISH PRESIDENT VISITED THE DIRTIEST MAN IN THE WORLD.

He told us about the power of words. Her daughter, during her teens, was visited by a lot of men. These men come and go. But one man always came back. She wrote Mr. Ruben a letter.

The last part went on like this:

Dad, among the kites I flew in the sky, Robert [the man who kept coming back] is the kite I want to keep on flying.

Now, Robert is Mr. Ruben’s son-in-law, and Robert’s son asked his grandfather if he was the first baby born into this world, because he was so old.

That was the talk about effective writing. Hope it does you well.

Ciao~

Btw… this is my centennial post. ^____^

my mind fleeted at :1:04 pm ;