The fire of campus journalism

I never knew what to say whenever I was asked why I became a campus journalist. It’s not like I had a go-to answer sitting comfortably in my mind at all times. Not until recently when I, together with other Central Luzon-based campus journalists, was invited to give a short statement for the 90th founding anniversary of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines.

As a campus journalist, I was taught — nay, conditioned — that journalism should always be unbiased; news reports should not be tainted with personal opinions; and, articles, in general, should be angled from objectivity. Growing accustomed to this, I have always viewed traditional reportage as easy and can only be perceived (and digested) like a piece of cake.

It wasn’t always the case with me. Maybe I was just going through puberty as I started rejecting glittery cakes and was only channeling my newfound teenage angst into writing during my last year in high school. In fact, once under my editorship, the official printed copies were all pulled out from the possession of the student body because of an editorial piece I wrote regarding the lack of anti-smoking policies and signages within campus premises, even calling the matter “a call for death.” As if that wasn’t bad enough for the school’s reputation, my associate editor wrote an opinion piece calling the school’s comfort rooms a “meeting place where students can smoke freely.” Skipping the being-summoned-to-the-principal’s-office drama, that’s when I knew campus journalists can transform a written piece into actual change, especially when a week after the incident, multiple anti-smoking signages were set up and the comfort rooms were, of course, beautified.

Now that I’m in college, I did not particularly excel in a journalism course last academic year as I refused to adhere to my professor’s probably outdated syllabus. Was it still because of teenage angst or maybe I was still bitter for all the wrong reasons?

But, true, the very essence of journalism is to report what we see or hear, and I only reported what I had observed years ago. But to which extent do we report based only on the surface? Was this the reason I continued carrying on the mantle of campus journalism?

As of writing, I am still a campus journalist. Given our current sociopolitical climate, I chose this path. I want to write and tell stories, but only those belonging to the unseen and unheard.

I am not rejecting journalism’s core teachings; I am just reiterating the need to be more critical as we are currently in the crossfire of a propaganda war, and those who are caught in the middle of all this chaos rely on militant journalism. What we, journalists, scribble may and will echo beyond the concept of mere reporting and staying neutral is tantamount to waving the white flag.

So why I am a journalist? It is because I consider journalism as a form of activism. Do we not fight misinformation and disinformation by cross-validating multiple sources? Do we not stand on the precipice of death threats and incessant state-perpetuated attacks and Red-tagging to combat black propaganda? Don’t we, as agents of the Fourth Estate, have the gravity to hold those in power to account?

We exist not to simply tell stories. The need to inform the school administration about the lack of anti-smoking policies, the need to stand against journalism neutrality and complicity, the need to fight for press freedom in order to tell more stories—this is why I still choose to be a journalist. Frankly, I did not always have this answer with me; I just wanted to believe I can, in some way, be an instrument of change but it’s not as I hoped it would be; it’s definitely more complicated than that.

Yet, somehow, I still perceive journalism as a piece of cake. Only this time, the cake is being served by stained, iron hands. And I prefer my cake not tainted with dirt and blood.

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Ray Mark Samson Espiritu, 24, is a communication arts senior at Gordon College and is the editor in chief of The Forefront, the college’s official student publication. He enjoys the rush that comes with cramming papers.