In recognizing the role of responsible journalism in the holistic development of MSU-IIT, Office of the Publication and Information advanced its second wave of Training in Journalism with a workshop in news writing, and lectures on Journalism Ethics, Review on Grammar, and Writing for Culture and Heritage on March 2-3, 2016 at the Institute Mini Theater.
Attended by the Institute’s
Writers, Editors and Students, the training has been fruitful in its first day.
Engaging open forum glued everyone to think critical on issues about libellous tendencies,
ethics and professionalism in student and institute publications, and good
writing with good grammar as the lifeblood of every journalist.
A Review in the Use of
Prepositions and Idioms was discussed by Prof. Michelle Jeanne C. Caracut;
Journalism Ethics by Prof. Maria Theresa B. Panzo and Office of the Chancellor
Special Assistant Mr. Rex Ortega facilitated the News Writing workshop. Prof.
Caracut and Prof. Panzo are both special assistants of the Office Publication
and Information.
A Review on Grammar
Prof. Caracut, a very dedicated
mentor as introduced by a Campus Ambassador, presented the ABCD principle in
Academic Writing where A is for Accuracy, B for Brevity, C for Clarity, and D
for Directness. She has mentioned about having a good grammar would always lead
to nowhere but good journalism.
This session have reviewed the
use of prepositions in journalistic articles and corrected common mistakes done
by most journalists and writers. Prof. Caracut also discussed the Journalistic
Style Characteristics, and confusions on the use of prepositional phrases and phrasal
verbs.
Journalism Ethics
Prof. Panzo, a professor from the
Department of English of the Institute, came into the rostrum introducing the concept
of libel as indicated in the Revised Penal Code Article 355. In accord to the
code, Prof. Panzo explicated the presumption of malice and the grounds on how to
qualify libellous acts. This certain topic have enflamed the curious minds of
the participants.
The Journalists code of ethics
was also explained requiring every journalist to commit themselves to ethical
and professional standards. To name a few of the provisions, it has the code of
not committing any act of plagiarism, take unfair advantage to a fellow
journalist and violate confidential information.
Along with the discussion of Code
V, Prof. Panzo has told a story about a peanut vendor she had interviewed for a
feature article years ago when she was still in college. The 9-year-old vendor
was the main character of her feature ‘Christmas in the eyes of a child’ which
got a space in their university paper. What made the story really sad, six
months after december, was the same child was the subject of her news on rape
and murder having the child as the victim.
News Writing Workshop
Having quite a number of new
faces in the crowd, Mr. Rex Ortega has given first a review on Writing News.
The speaker, who is a special assistant of the chancellor, enumerated the types
of Publications, one being the Adversarial journalism which is considered as
the fourth estate and, really the watchdog of the government and the Sunshine
as the other which no negative stuffs are being written.
In News writing, as he reminded
everyone, would have nothing to do about fiction and creative writing because
it deals with real life and everything must be factual.
The workshop allowed everyone to
write a news article about the workshop itself and its second task required
them to write an article about the whole event.
This series of workshop and a
lecture is an opportunity for the Institute’s developing journalists to be
advanced and become excellent in their respective crafts in the Journalism
Realm. This Training in Journalism is an endeavour organized by the Institute’s
dynamic Office of Publication and Information headed by Dr. Christine
Godinez-Ortega.
