THE Regional Schools Press Conference was held on November 20 to 21 in Malolos City, Bulacan. This year’s theme, “Fostering 21st Century Skills and Character-Based Education through Campus Journalism,” is indeed very timely and relevant.
In today’s era of digital media where we mold our young ones to develop 21st century skills, it is also our parallel aspiration to inculcate values to our young campus journalists especially on the field of journalism.
Media, or the press, is considered the fourth estate, and being such, it serves as the watchdog of the government, informing people of the relevant events that happen in the community, in the nation, and even around the world.
From the traditional mode of reportage which is the newspaper, we saw the transformation of media with the invention of the radio, and also the television. People who write the news, do commentaries over the radio, and those who broadcast the stories on the television are limited to the journalists; the experts who spent their time studying the field, mastering the techniques and even the proper values that a journalist must possess, thus we have the Philippine Journalist’s Code of Ethics of 1988.
However, as technology continuously encompasses our world, we also now have the fourth type of media through the Internet, the social media. Nowadays, we don’t have to wait for the next day to read the newspaper, listen to the radio, or watch the news over the television to know the headlines and current goings-on in and out of the country. With just a click, information is available and can be shared instantly.
While we see the many advantages of the new technologies that we seem to cannot live without nowadays, name it, we cannot avoid Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social networking sites, we have to clearly see as well the disadvantages of this in our lives. We all know about the phenomenon called “fake all news” and it is saddening to know how this have become widespread.
It certainly has caused a lot of negative impacts in the field of journalism since an ordinary person, who has a camera phone, can instantly capture an incident, post it on the social media site, and become a source of information that can be shared all over the world. Journalism is no longer limited to the reporters, anchors, information officers, and media experts. Anyone now can produce news anytime, anywhere.
This is where our values and character must come in. The first clause in the Journalist’s Code of Ethics says: “I shall scrupulously report and interpret the news, taking care not to suppress essential facts nor to distort the truth by omission or improper emphasis. I recognize the duty to air the other side and to correct substantive errors promptly.”
We have to clearly see the boundary between being a journalist to being a simple blogger or content developer on the social media. To quote an article about fake news, “Journalists are the guardians of veritas, lest they become ‘bloggers’ or ‘vloggers’.”
“Journalism is a professional discipline and as with every discipline it requires knowledge, training; it involves methodology, procedures in order to ascertain the facts and report on them accordingly. Journalism is a calling from which few are chosen.”
Let this be my challenge to young budding campus journalists. You already hold in your hands the power to inform, the power to speak the truth for the common good of our people. Use this power wisely, truthfully, and honorably. You are the hope of this nation, and you hold the key to a brighter, liberating future.