by Sarah Elizabeth Allen
Talk show host and once GMA 24 Oras anchor, Mr. Rodrigo “Jiggy” Manicad brings his Jiggy Manicad Stories (JMS) to MSU-IIT. The forum facilitated by the Office of Publication and Information in partnership with Team MMPI (Marnie Manicad Productions International) was held at the MSU-IIT Gymnasium early morning of Friday, September 14, 2018.
Manicad’s forum focused on Journalism—the basic steps in conceiving a news story, how stories come alive and issues arising from fake news and the roles of social media on the masses. He explains that the seed of story writing starts with a concept. Concepts for journalism, as he further expounds, come from one’s awareness of his/her surroundings giving notice to even the seemingly insignificant details and members of society. These concepts in order to be given life need to be nurtured. To nurture means to reinforce the ideas with more experiences and observations. After that the draft may now be started. For budding writers, Manicad challenged them to use friends as the first critique circle of the draft.
He then went on sharing his first hand encounters in the field. As a very daring reporter, Manicad usually choses to be embedded in the fields of action where the stories happen rather than opting to stay in media stations and wait for press conferences to open. He explains this is one prerogative a news reporter may consider in order to get to the root of his/her story. What is important, he says, is content. A good field reporter should do research beforehand. He/she brings along with them whatever materials they have gathered to serve as tools for delving through the facts. Also, in the opportunity of interviews, one ought to prepare the hard questions, “iprepare ninyo yung mga tanong na sa tingin ninyo iiwasang sagutin ng subject because yun yung test of journalism, yung mahanap ang katotohanan.” However, he also warns not to be rash in addressing such queries. That instead of attacking use a less or non-offensive method in asking questions in order to avoid later conflict or tension with the subjects. Also, coherence is a must. “you have to do good story telling, the writer has to describe ano yung nakikita at kung ano ang naririnig niya… Follow the weave of the story.” Manicad says.
Field reporting is not easy, he says. But because of one’s passion to really capture and write stories that matter for the nation, a reporter has to be fully equipped not only mentally but also physically as he/she will be encountering several situations that would require survival. Meaning, reporters assign in the fields ought to prepare several things like, camping and first-aid gear, research materials, media equipment, etc. All these constitute towards the logistic of news writing.
For fake news, Manicad made the kids identify several examples of fake news from the real. Majority of the social media he says are nowadays very fond resharing fake headlines or fake or spam websites or which contain, if not totally false, but twisted rumors.
As a whole Manicad challenged the students to consider pursuing passion. It is with passion that stories are given life. With passion, stories will be able to move people. Good news and/or feature news is tricky but if it is for the truth to be exposed, a reporter needs to sacrifice a lot to complete his/her story. “Broadcasting (or journalism),” he says, “is sometimes brutal, but hindi mo dapat personalen… ganyan talaga trabaho mo— to capture the news that is happening around, you have to be very determined to delve into the truth.”
Topics : journalism jms team mmpi broadcasting manicad news