It was a chilly Wednesday morning (perfect weather for sleeping, might I add), and my day started with the painful blaring of my 6:45 AM alarm. It’s today, I realized.
Prior to the day itself, I was not so keen on the idea of the journalism workshop this year being face-to-face since technically, we students are still on summer break, and that would mean waking up early during summer. Nevertheless, I was excited to see the organization as a whole, with us writers doing what we’re passionate about. In the past year, we’ve produced outputs that we’ve slept at 2 AM. for and nearly lost our sanity over—contemplating our life decisions somewhere in the process of creating them.
Getting to school and entering the Lecture Hall after so long was a surreal experience. Who would’ve thought that I would miss the freezing aircon, the bright red chairs, and the carpeted floors? While everyone was basically half-dead and asking themselves why they were here, the program started. There was also an icebreaker segment which, in fact, gave us a good laugh and a dreadful amount of socialization.
Following this, Mr. Manny Mogato, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and guest speaker for this workshop, appeared on Zoom to start his talk. Due to health reasons, he was not able to come in person to share his insights. In the first session of his talk, some of the topics he discussed were how prevalent misinformation and disinformation are in today’s time, how Filipinos distrust legitimate news sources, and the significance of journalism and the qualities of a good journalist. After a short break, he continued on to the second session of his talk, during which he talked about headline writing, including tips on how to write an effective and compelling headline.
It was now around 12 PM, and we could finally have lunch, which was provided by the school. The cafeteria was filled with teachers and students euphorically wolfing down their food. The time allotted for our lunch break flew by quickly, and we were soon back in the Lecture Hall once again.
For the remainder of the day, we broke out into small groups with our respective sections and went into different classrooms. We were pleasantly surprised when we saw how many new writers were now in our section—Features—since we were only a handful of people before. An introduction was given regarding the section as well as a few icebreakers and “get-to-knows.” Before we knew it, the first day of the journalism workshop was over.
I completely did not expect to enjoy this event as much as I did. I knew that being a part of Lifenews, as well as the Journalism Varsity, would not be a walk in the park. It comes with hardships, frustrations, and disappointments along the way, but it has its share of perks and upsides. I am thrilled about what’s in store for Lifenews this year and what new tips and lessons we can add to our writing knowledge.
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