For the last two weeks, Editors of Manila's Twitter thread on why journos left the field, which revealed the downsides of working in the local journalism landscape, has been attracting a massive amount of attention. I was awfully struck when a very private former colleague jumped into the bandwagon and lamented why he left the profession.
Here are the things I agree on:
- To be an entry- and mid-level journalist in the Philippines is to be perpetually 'woke' but broke.
- The newsroom culture is demanding (no holidays, low overtime pay, low pay rates) and the most competitive newsrooms are riddled with toxic masculinity.
- Things can get catty and snarky (especially in the beat). Plus, double standards. Period.
This had me thinking: Were these the same reasons I left the profession? I don't think so. The last time I was an in-house reporter was in 2010. I've been freelancing for a decade and officially ended my love affair with journalism in 2015. Now I'm back, albeit, not employed by a local media outfit.
I guess I'm luckier than most -- I never struggled with a minimal pay because, for some odd reason, I was well taken care of by my editors. I don't remember much my cash-strapped struggling cub reporter self. I do, however, remember the coverages I loathe, the times I burned the midnight oil for a story that would go stale if I wait for daylight, the times my colleagues and I lamented the bulk of data we had to wade through while eating lunch. When I hark back to my early days as a journalist, I remember having fun. But of course that's just hindsight, the challenges morphing to insider jokes and running gags that keep us preoccupied on days we all meet up for coffee, a luxury we never had ten years ago. Being so young, idealistic, and optimistic, those years were the heydays -- ones that formed a deep bond among former colleagues-turned-housemates-turned-siblings and that connection lasts until today.
The industry burned me, yes, but I remember the laughter and the stupidity, not, never the pain.
---
Over Vietnamese dishes, Jen and I talked about our girlhood dreams. Hers was to publish a book, mine was to become a novelist. Every step I took from the age of seven until 24 was geared towards that: writing a novel. But then, I also dreamed of getting a banner headline, covering the elections, writing a series of investigative stories, headwriting a show, directing a film...
"Have you ever had a dream that's not connected to your work?" she asked.
"Never," I said. "Maybe becoming a novelist?" That, I added, has been the most elusive so far. I had the opportunity to publish some flash fiction stories two years ago when I was prolific. Then the intensity fizzled out as I ventured into filmmaking, and the stories left unedited and abandoned, dying with the publishing deal.
"Do you regret your choices?" Our desserts arrived: a beautiful green steamed rice cake drizzled with sweeteners. It was refreshing to the palate, a gentle ender to a savory feast.
"Maybe if I didn't leave journ, I would have had a book by now -- at least given my career pace ten years ago. If not a novel, maybe something more journalistic." The rice cake wobbled under my silver spoon. "I would have crossed off 'write a book' in my life goals."
"But hey, at least you made something out of the choices you made." Jen smiled. "At least you can cross off 'direct a film' and 'headwrite a show'."
"A pain in the ass show, yeah. Off the list -- never happening again."
---
I left journalism because it was tiring to sit on the fence and watch the world commit the same mistakes. Sure you have front row seats to history but if the road to that was fucked, won't you feel bad? Besides, I was young and the world was unexplored. I will not let the newsroom feast on my youth, I said. So I jumped out of my stable, regular, and would-have-been high paying job, abandoned the prospect of becoming an editor, and explored the uneasy, volatile, and capricious world of entertainment television.
Out of the industry, I saw its many faults, limitations. In the back burner I raised an eyebrow as it struggled with the new lay of the land, bat an eyelash at how its reporters, once belittled in my days for "only being an online journalist" grew to influential heights, glorified even. I saw former colleagues get ostracised for their "objectivity," which they defended to death even as they ironically voice out their personal opinions on their social media accounts. I saw how some reverted to the lame "I'm not a journalist" excuse to escape criticisms because, after all, they took a different undergraduate degree, overlooking the fact that once one belongs to a media outfit, its ethics and standards should be the norm and not the exception, and that attachment officially makes them "journalists."
I left without regrets and pursued creative writing because it was a calling. Television opened my cloistered little self to realities on the ground, exposed me to socio-cultural sentiments beyond what can captured by a news report. I'd be a hypocrite if I say I didn't miss journalism -- day in and out, I wondered what it's like to come back, to feel the accomplishment of a byline, to bask in the rush of a breaking news, to be part of a collective high in an election war room, to temper the agonizing excitement of doing fieldwork on a story that nobody has written about yet...
I cried when I signed my exclusive television contract because it signaled the end of my life as a journalist. But I also cried when I left television, cried when I left my humanitarian work to make a film, and felt the emptiest after finishing my first full-length feature. All those transitions hurt. Every ending was closing the door to another life, to another me in another time.
---
"I'm back to square one," Jum said while we endured the Pasig City traffic on a lazy Saturday afternoon. We just finished window shopping for a toy poodle in Tiendesitas and her little baby, an energetic Yorkie named Cooper snoozed on her lap as she turned the wheel. "I realize I have to be active on Facebook and Twitter again so I can rebuild my personal brand and my sources."
"Yeah, and I have to stop ranting on Twitter. It's no longer a private space," I mumbled. "My old contacts are either retired or off the grid." But that's not the hardest part, I said, it's when you stare at a blank Word document, churn out words for hours only to realize you don't know how to write anymore and the words are... missing in action. "I feel like a fresh graduate. Especially when my copy comes back and it has so many red marks... I feel like I'll never be able to write the way I used to... But you know, maybe it's just my ego getting in the way. So what if I suck?"
Jum laughed. "What will you give up to be a brilliant writer again?"
"Directing. You?"
"Being a managing editor." She hit the brakes. We're trapped in another Carmageddon.
Don't you feel that we're being too burgis (UP's demeaning term for an elitist or someone who thinks like one)? Instead of returning to journalism with a higher calling (like change the world), we're returning for self-improvement.
"I just want to be good at writing again."
Who wouldn't? I realized. We're too old to wallow in the financial insecurity that comes with working for media, too old for regrets and wounded pride. These new jobs are not mere vanity projects after all. We laughed at what we lost and what we thought we gained, smiled at the prospect of returning to a place we never left.
Cooper raised his head, extended his paws toward my seat, and ruminated jumping to my lap. Instead, he went back to sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment