What I learned in 30 years in community journalism

“Journalism isn't about how smart you are. It's not about where you're from. It's not about who you know or how clever your questions are. And thank God for that. It's about your ability to embrace change and uncertainty. It's about being fearless personally and professionally.”
--Mary Pilon

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY --- I nearly didn’t notice that year 2018 was the 30th year that I have been writing as a community journalist.
Thirty years and counting, with God’s guidance.
In those years that I have been writing, I learned a few damning realities:
1. No Filipino community journalist who stuck to his profession until retirement age became rich. In the first place, there is no money in journalism. It’s only our passion and inner satisfaction that drive us to continue writing--and sometimes act as Chief Problem Solvers of the universe. Fame is good, but journalists also need to eat three square meals a day; they also need to rear a family and live with dignity.
2. It’s not healthy to maintain a close relationship with politicians or military and police if you are a principled journalist. Every now and then, politicians or men in uniform commit anomalous acts--if they are not involved in scandalous incidents. If the culprit is a “friend” the journalist will be in a very uncomfortable situation.
3. It’s risky to accept (even if secretly) a payola from any source other than the office payroll. In the first place, it’s highly deplorable and unethical to engage in this kind of practice which is tantamount to “press-titution”. Sooner or later, someone in the league will rat. No secret will remain a secret ‘till eternity. In the media world, however, nobody walks a saint.
4. A columnist does not apply. He is invited. Back in 1990, then Western Visayas Daily Times editor-in-chief Manuel Mejorada rejected former City Hall information officer Eldrid Antiquera who applied in the paper as “columnist”. Mejorada said anyone, not just Antiquera, can’t just shortcut his way to the level of columnist. He must first prove his worth and establish a name in the community. Antiquera was having troubles with then Mayor Roding Ganzon and was always reprimanded in front of many people. He probably wanted to “get out of the kitchen” when he could no longer stand the heat. Antiquera became a lawyer and city councilor years later.

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I started writing for the fledgling News Express, a weekly paper in Iloilo City in the Philippines in May 1988, the same year the publication was born and published by the late Davao City-based printing press mogul, Inocencio “Pops” Malones, owner of Fortune Printing Press and uncle of our former business manager and now Maasin Mayor Mariano Malones.
The late Ben Palma was the paper’s first “editor” but our de facto editor was Agnes Españo and now lawyer Pet Melliza. Now Journal Visayas publisher Giovannie Va-ay was our circulation manager.
It’s been a roller coaster ride.
From the News Express, I briefly wrote for the defunct Western Visayas Daily Times published by the late Yuhum Magazine big boss, Marcos “Mark” Villalon, in 1993.
Then came an invitation from former Iloilo airport concessionaire, Bernie Miaque, to write for the Daily Informer in 1994, the year the publication first rolled off the press edited by my former College Editors Guild of the Philippines-Reform Movement (CEGP-RM) colleague, the late Ivan Suansing.
After two years, Ivan and I left the Daily Informer.
We were both handpicked by the Cebu management of Sun Star and Mr. Villalon after the merging of Sun Star Cebu and Western Visayas Daily Times to handle the editorial of Sun Star Iloilo Daily in 1996.
Ivan brought his family to Cebu in 1998 to edit Cebu Daily, a new publication and Sun Star Cebu’s rival.
Ivan wanted me to go with him but because it would mean a permanent relocation, I declined and opted to stay behind to edit the Sun Star Iloilo Daily until December 1999, the year we were bamboozled by libel cases (coming only from one group of politicians and their subalterns, a story that need to be told in a separate article) that reached a mind-boggling 38 counts.

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I put up my own bi-monthly paper, Iloilo Today-The New Millennium Publication, in 2000.
In 2004, Makinaugalingon Printing Press owner Rosendo “Sendong” Mejica tasked broadcast journalist Erly Garcia to locate me offering a job to edit his bi-weekly publication, Iloilo Today. I apologized to Publisher Sendong and Erly that I could not anymore commit to work full-time for any publication because of my crazy schedule.
In 2004, publisher Miaque convinced me to edit the Daily Informer after a chance meeting in the airport. I declined because I always traveled outside the Philippines, the same excuse I gave Publisher Sendong and Erly.
Publisher Miaque made a compromise: he agreed that I could travel anytime to fulfill my obligations in sports; the late associate editor Lydia Pendon would be the acting editor in my absence.
I stayed with the Daily Informer, the last daily newspaper I edited, until 2008, the year the paper “died a natural death” several months after the court ordered the demolition of publisher Miaque’s property in the old Iloilo airport in Mandurriao district where our editorial office was also obliterated.