Campus journalists are journalists

Ericka Nieto

There should be no distinction between campus journalists and professional journalists. I’ve always wanted to be a journalist. My interest started when my Grade 10 English instructor asked me to help her in reestablishing our school publication three years after it was shut down by the school principal who was then having issues on improper liquidation of school funds. We weren’t given any funds nor his approval, we just started mobilizing the publication.

Every weekend, I would visit my adviser at their own home to train in different categories of writing. I was appointed as the editor-in-chief and after three consecutive sessions we started recruiting our own staffers. As we were in the process of preproduction the principal was ousted., I collected the necessary evidence to expose it in our first issue that we had problems releasing due to lack of school funds. It was an unusual way to join a publication for a highschool student, with most people associating such activities only for joining writing contests. But right then, it became the foundation of my dream.

In college I chose a communication program to pursue journalism. What made me decide to study in De La Salle Lipa (DLSL) was because of its publication. A week before enrollment in DLSL, I had already registered in the online application posted by the Lavoxa Group of Publications. I’ve heard about the publication on acquaintances who previously joined Papercut, the annual journalism forum that the publication organizes for the student journalists in Batangas.

After passing the recruitment examination, I was assigned to different types of coverages inside and outside the campus. It always gives me the adrenaline every time my editor assigns me to cover on-thespot or crime related coverages rather than covering school events that I used to cover in high school. It gives me the feeling that I am really doing what the journalists do. As I become exposed to the authorities and other people whom the media interacts with, I noticed a strong distinction with the treatment authorities give between the campus press and the professional press.

I once accompanied our junior writers who were covering a robbery to a police station to request for a copy of the police report. As we identified ourselves as media, the desk officer immediately accompanied us to their information office. We were having small talk with the officer-on-duty and one of the officers slightly raised

“In our age of trolls and disinformation, the role of the campus press becomes even more important in shaping public opinion and laying down the facts when the mainstream media is under constant and direct attack from a government that refuses to be criticized.”

his voice when he heard that we were a campus press. He firmly said that only the victims and the people involved are allowed to access the report, opposing his own previous statement and showing ignorance of the law. It is clearly stated in the Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines, under Article 3 - Bill of Rights - Section 7 that the right of people to information of public concerns shall be recognized.

When we were about to leave the precinct, the officer shamelessly said that “Binobola kasi ang pulis,”.

The incident is not a case of misinterpretation of the Data Privacy Act of 2012 but a method to prolong the delivery of the information to the public.

This kind of treatment for campus journalists leads to delaying public access to information. When authorities ignore the role of campus journalism through questioning the credibility of students journalists, they are in fact, breaking the constitutional provisions that guarantee the right to exercise freedom of the press and the right of people to information. Be it a campus publication or a professional publication, both follow the same ethical standards in covering the news and the law makes no distinction between the two.

Campus journalists are capable of reporting. We have a long history of campus journalism playing its part in revolution, as has been established since the colonial rule of both the Americans and Spaniards starting with the writings of Marcelo del Pilar, Graciano Lopez Jaena, and Jose Rizal to name a few, the perpetrators of a propaganda movement which lead to the birth of an independent nation.

During the Marcos regime, student journalists were also among those who led the call to revolution when mainstream press were all but shut down by dictatorial rule. The first female who was killed during martial law was a campus journalist, in just one of the thousands of attempts to silence the fourth state in telling the truth.

In our age of trolls and disinformation, the role of the campus press becomes even more important in shaping public opinion and laying down the facts when the mainstream media is under constant and direct attack from a government that refuses to be criticized.

Though my own experiences are shallow compared to the threats and attacks that professional journalists encounter, the move to silence or withhold information from any publication—even if just a campus publication—is a threat on both the freedom of the press and democracy.