TEACHING JOURNALISM: A BIG RESPONSIBILITY

MODESTA B. DE GUZMAN

“Responsible Journalism is the essence of being a writer”.

As a language teacher and a School Paper Adviser, one of many ingredients and the most important aspect of a school paper is responsible journalism. It all starts in the school before it exceeds the wide aspect of a society. Selecting qualified and talented student is not an easy task. You need to let them explore their own talent in writing. After the task of selecting writers was done, another difficult task is the mentoring.

At the start of the mentoring process students are so eager to learn, look on their eyes sparkle wanting to grasp new knowledge. This is the hardest part for me as I coach them responsible journalism. I let them watch news program then the critiquing process starts. This technique is a motivation to identify their strength and weaknesses. This will help analyse and group students according to their potentials. And that goes the training.

The question that ponder my mind is : How can I teach my students responsible journalism? Well. for others it’s simple but for me it’s a huge word, why? Because your dealing with young minds, curious of everything, always wanting to ask questions. This is a challenge for us school paper advisers, we should inculcate in the minds of our young writers to write article that are fair, because the school paper is the voice of the student. I can only give them good advice but I leave to them the decision on what to include in the newspaper but with utmost discipline and responsibility. Oh yes, Writing is quite addicting not all ideas can be written.

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The author is Master Teacher I