The PRISM writes the other 30
LOCAL
WRITTEN BY JORIELYN MARTIZANO
A
A common scene in a journalist’s life in copyreading an article is a hectic day or night, a grasp in a pen or in a pencil, and a raise of an eyebrow or a smirk on the lips while looking at one piece of paper to another. After putting the necessary copyreading symbols from the stylebook, the editor would write the number 30 at the end of the article’s last sentence. Then the editor would make a heavy exhale. It’s the end. In journalism, 30 is an editing symbol used along the symbol “#” to indicate that it is the end of the story. From a mere editing symbol, 30 had found itself used as a symbol outside copyreading. It had become a headline cliché that someone who “writes 30”, retires from the journalism career or succumbs to death. Ironically, the 30 for The PRISM is when we remember those who made life out of an idea and not those who accomplished living their own lives, is when we recall what had started and not what had just ended, and when we get inspired to continue telling stories and not to tell one last story. We temporarily halt and dive into thoughts what had transpired in the past decades as The PRISM writes its 30th year of making stories and collective voices that had endured the test of time through papers. It was around August or September 1989, Dr. Runato A. Basañes, the current Dean of College of Teacher Education(CTE), tried to recall. Prior to his editorial position as the first Managing Editor, it was an intensive discussion and brainstorming between the chosen editors and staff writers to separate the college publication from The Wheel, the high school publication. It was a long time ago that perhaps most of them, the founders and pioneers had already forgotten what were the words that came out to justify the name suggestions and the visions they shared to keep it thriving. Nevertheless, what had never forgotten are the ghostlike shadows in a particular part of the then library where the Sentro ng Wika at Kultura(SWK) stands at the present—their memory of The PRISM’s birth. People have asked, why The PRISM? Perhaps, even the newbies of the publication would ask why. The typical answers of the staff prior the retrieval of the explanation from the archives are references of a three-dimensional figure that is introduced both in physics and geometry and the “maybe because it sheds light” or rarely saying “maybe it transforms the light” that had become an overrated explanation year after year despite being “maybes”. The jubilee year of the university that took place approximately five years ago became an opportunity to the then editorial staff to see how the university publication evolved through the years in the exhibit. There was one issue in a brown paper that became a magnet to the eye of our predecessors- Volume I, Issue No. 1 covering June-September 1989 wherein page 9 provides the answer why it was named after prism. The three sides of the figure represent truth, justice, and excellence—the ideals that the publication stand for. While the publication’s name is a mere adaptation of a transparent figure with a straightforward yet visionary representation, the white light that passes through it and the hues it makes are the attached concept for The PRISM for a long time. On page 11 of Volume XI, Issue No. 1 dated JuneOctober 2001 states that the different rays of light represent the students from the different courses offered by the then Polytechnic State College of Antique (PSCA) and a line, “as a whole, PRISM serves as a light both for PSCA and the nearby communities.
The Three Ideals Through the Years Campus journalism believes in the idea of truth. Yet, campus journalism evolves while the truth does not. Truth remained as it is through summary and novelty leads, even news angles. Nonetheless, for decades, it takes
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