just got killed

I would very much admit now that though I was not able to pass an article daily last week, if the managing editor had been there, I would have resigned or received a memo for my incompetency even before the week ends.

It had been frustrating then, but it would been even more if the managing editor had not been in Europe last week.

By the time he got back to work, I was filled with events and big time press conferences that I had been able to pass at least one every day.

Of course, much of what I had planned still were flushed in the toilet for either lack of newsworthiness, lack of facts, or simply never followed up.

Given that Friday was supposedly the lightest day of the week, I was truly thankful enough that I still had an event to cover, which meant a sure-ball article and I will still have enough time to follow up on stories I've been thinking to do.

Then again, everything just seemed to fade away so sudden.

Who would have thought that I could never get anything from an ASEAN event? I have been into the health beat for the week and I'm pretty sure I have enough knowledge to go about the press conference. I called up my editor to slug in my story, only to find out it was not worth the internet space.

Allow me to insert this here. This was the only time my editor really talked to me about my beat. Much of the phone call we had for the past few days were "this is my story" and "ok". But this time, he was telling what I should always be looking for in my beat, which is basically, "What will the Philippines get in this?"

With our phone conversation this afternoon, I was able to realize how vague and superficial ASEAN statements could get such that I couldn't really find anything concrete for the Philippines. I'm sure there are, but with less than an hour of open forum to a secretary who never really gave in to interviews, there wasn't enough opportunity to probe in these questions. And so, my story was scraped but he also gave me the feeling that it's ok since I'm just starting to get in the beat.

By the time my friend and I were in a taxi to get to a netshop, the desk texted me, telling me that my managing editor was looking for my stories, and should I further emphasize this, STORIES.

I was obviously obliged to call him and when I did, I realized I was talking to him without any story in my mind.

As expected, he was frustrated and started questioning me on what I had been doing the whole day. I had to explain the delay of schedule for the press conference and my attempts to look for a story even during the morning.

He wasn't that mad, but I remembered from him is that I should be treating my day as if no events were to happen and therefore I should be striving hard to get a story. The good part here though, is that he said since this was the first time, he's going to let it pass and instructed me to call him if I was able to come up with a story (which is an hour before the deadline).

I was scared really. I knew he was right and I needed to hear that. My editor and the managing editor has some sort of balance that both made me start moving on and try to do better. Moreover, I saw the blessing that has hidden from me last week, that if he had been there, I would have been dead by now.

I was killed today, yes, but it put a lot of pressure on me and I was still able to pass two stories for the day (although one of it is 30mins late). Welcome to the journ life of the business paper.