A JOURNALIST’S LIFE

ANA ROSE CABRERA

Truth seeker, hard worker, and reliable-all of these when wrapped together refer to a journalist. A journalist is one who has the desire to write not for himself but for others. He is one who has the desire to influence for good and one has the desire to impart knowledge and truth. To be a journalist is not a joke, it is a never easy. It takes patience and dedication, courage and determination, in order to become an effective one. Indeed, the life of a journalist is a life full of commitments, a life full of challenges, and most of all it is a life full of sense of fulfillment.

People may vary in their perceptions about how the life of a journalist works. There are some who view it as a plain writing of fact on a sheet of paper. Well, I guess that perception is only like a teaser or rather of a movie you want to watch, you only see few parts and details, but there is more than you know and care for. Now let me give you the privilege to have a closer look into the life and onus of a journalist.

First of all, journalist do not write for the sake of writing. They write because they want to inform and enlighten minds, probe and provoke, stimulate and engage, and show the way or present another. It is the very reason why journalists spend most of their time working on their write-ups. They search to be able to come up with a meaty and very interesting article which can be beneficial to the readers.

How challenging is the work of a journalist? During the onset controversial issue of the event, you see them roaming around and holding a paper and a pencil and camera. They ran back and forth studying every angle to take a good shots and vivid information.

They are always on the go even their own life is at stake. How does a journalist execute his work? Journalist’ s job is never plain writing of facts. One must seek first for reliable information which we can use to support the topic he wants to raise.

He then jots down the row information and from there the tremendous task follow because after gathering information through interviews, surveys and researches, that’s the only time for a journalist to sit down and get ready to undergo the different stages of writing which includes prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and proofreadi n g.

Things may sound easy, but a journalist knows that it is a laborious task. One may spend his whole night holding a cup of coffee on the left hand just to avoid falling sleep and a ball pen on his right hand busily writing and constructing a fine article.

It may also take him a couple of days or even sleepless nights or at the crack of dawn before he can come up to an excellent output. Time, efforts and energy are exerted simultaneously and all of these they do just to serve others in their own little way … through writing.

This is how a journalist works. It is toilsome, but it is also full of promising rewards especially when you see pairs of eyes scanning the chunks of information you served.

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The author is SST-III at Macabebe High School