Being a journalist is not a far-fetched idea for friends who've known me and have been with me since time and memorial. Studying the craft for five years makes people think that I have been equipped with the necessary principles and skills to become a true journalist.
Yeah, right. Who ever said it was going this hard?
But then, to give credit to all my professors in college, journalism was never easy. Doing an article daily and living each day at a time may be stressing but students could really get use to it. They did not lack in reminding us of the perils of the system, not just the political but the media itself. With the communication theories, ethical principles and journalism artciles we've done in the past, how can the work field be so different?
Haha. It is. And my stress level had never got up this high, with my appetite shifting and my mind rejecting food as it is filled with plans and ideas for stories instead. (And by the way, I am a stress eater)
From the very moment I wake up, my mind worries of the stories I need to do, much of them I don't know where to get, where to look for. As I worry, I start praying hard, telling God to just grant me with stories that will get me through the day.
Around eight in the morning, I venture the computer shop in hopes to find a press release in my inbox. If not, I'd really be hoping that the beat spokesperson would suddenly text for updates on overseas Filipino workers stories.
If I had not been successful to look for a story by 10, I start getting depressed with no ice cream to compensate for what I feel.
I tried coming by the office during those times, but with my computer located right behind the line of editors, the more I feel tensed. And by feeling tensed, I literally mean shaking. If I would want to get out the office, it would be very hard because I had to pass by my editor's table and he would usually look at me every time I walk there.
If by 0ne in the afternoon, I still have no story (which by the way usually happens), I feel like I want to hide. It's a feeling of shame, embarassment of admition of incompetency that I just want to fade away.
Getting out of the office is not that different actually. Being assigned in a beat where most reporters are rather old, new reporters are not really easily welcomed. The press office is fantastic. Computers are available. Newspapers are on the desk. A television (and I think cables for PSP) is ready to use. Phone lines are everywhere, and the best part, the room is air-conditioned. But then, no one usually comes there, unless something important is going to happen or somebody wants to sleep during office hours.
Courtesy calls for the big people in the beat are simple fantasies for new reporters. The only event that I was able to see any official at the building is when the secretary was about to leave the building. I had tried asking permission to even at least, meet the spokesperson but no one ever allowed me. In activist terms, the agency is very bureaucratic and the media is expected to be simply an information dissemination agent. Probing is, I guess, discouraged.
So how had I been amidst the pressure and the beat, I'm trying to survive. Ergo, I must survive. I know very well that God had given me this job and to give up so easily is by far giving up on what God wants for me. Anyway, I'm just on my first week. Who ever said the first week was going to be easy? In fact, it might take me a month or so for just adjusting. Then again, being a christian journalist is never easy. I am obliged to live each day at a time with stress but still and always in faith.
I will survive, sing it with me :D
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