On by-lines and exclusives

Haven’t been blogging for a while so sue me. Partly woolgathering and partly busy. Been doing this and this, also this, this and finally, this. One thing I noticed though — I don’t leave much of an online trail, primarily because 99.9 percent of the stuff I do is never by-lined. Really makes you think of reinventing this particular wheel. Still, there’s some satisfaction in being first in breaking news stories that actually had some legs. One story, the defacement of the Neo-Angono press freedom mural, hogged headlines for weeks. We broke that story on a Friday night, two days before PDI made it their headline. I even got to interview Malang for this story.

On a side note, I had a delightful encounter with one of the senior officers of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology today. While exchanging numbers, said CICT official asked me where the article I was working on would appear. She asked me if I could show it on my phone and I said mine didn’t have roaming because it was low-tech. She gave me a look that said ‘An online reporter that can’t go online? How sad!’ It made me laugh and broke the ice between us. Thank God for government officials with a real sense of humor, what would we do without them.

Thankful

It’s 2:05 a.m. I’m typing this while on my tummy because the computer is still on our bedroom floor weeks after we got it fixed in Gilmore. Mika and Maita are both asleep. There are dust mites beside me and the only sound I hear is the soft whirr of the computer’s built-in fan.

I’m supposed to get some shuteye at this time especially after today’s labor. I am also in dire need of a massage to release the coiled tension in my shoulder blades. Earlier, I was already looking at my watch by 2 p.m. because I couldn’t wait for my shift to end today.

Was it really that bad? Maybe not so much. I did feel a lot of the tension sloughing off me at the end of the exceedingly long TV Patrol program at 8 p.m. when I was eating my second free meal of one-piece Jollibee Chickenjoy for the day. When I got home before 9, I asked for pineapple juice and drank a whole can. Mika had a blast playing with my company and media count IDs before inviting Maita and me to go to bed because she so missed the airconditioning. I was asleep before 10 then woke up two and a half hours later, refreshed.

But before sleeping, I told Maita that I wanted to pray tonight. I am not really a prayerful guy and there’s a part of me that realizes that a lot of my prayers are requests. “Need this, need that, I hope I get it soon. Thanks for listening, God.” But tonight, I just felt thankful. Thankful for wisdom and knowledge and the presence of mind to prioritize the right things and issue the right instructions today. Thankful that the whole team did well and that we acquitted ourselves admirably during the election coverage.

Maita and I joined hands and I prayed: “God, in the grand scheme of things, this election coverage will not amount to much but thank You anyway for helping us get through it. Thank You for giving us talents and abilities to do our work well. And thank You for the grace.”

Post mort – May 14 AM shift 

I had two writers (Angelo and Jum), two section editors (Ramil and Teena), one transcriber (Reyma), a publisher (Patrick) and about four OJTs — and they all did well. Ramil did a splendid job giving us updates at the Halalan war room. Jum did business stories and subbed for Ramil later. Teena did what she does best, which was to catch any and all editing errors in the whole election day rush while Patrick kept updating the graphics constantly. Angelo created new speed records for writing as many stories as possible on a single shift and Reyma, bless her heart, transcribed stuff while calling up candidates to check if they had already voted. There wasn’t a whole lot of transcribing done today because the stories were moving too fast – I had to tell the OJTs to take notes because I literally could not give them the 30 minutes to one hour they needed to transcribe the radio reports. I also have to mention our two midnight guys – Paolo and Dennis – who stepped up to the plate and wrote the first breaking stories of the election coverage at the tail-end of their shift while us morning guys were still getting our bearings. Sir Abe took the brunt of it at the opening of the polls despite being in the office since Sunday night while Pierre spent another day doing code for the media count.

We wrote and published over 40 breaking and full-blown news stories between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. We didn’t cover everything but we did get all the major ones. The Halalan site looked incredible. The IPD maps came in just in time. The media count was heads and tails above the competition despite my initial misgivings when figures spiked around 5 p.m.

I barely left my seat when I clocked in at 8 a.m. and my only breaks were for trips to the restroom. I nibbled at my lunch between noon to 4 and I still didn’t finish until it was almost 6 p.m. I also purposefully avoided the war room after I realized that I would be unable to write stories with the laptop they provided. I was exasperated a couple of times but didn’t quite show it except when an OJT showed up at noon when he was supposed to be in the office 12 hours earlier. In the end, I had to send him home and told him to come back at midnight.

Twelve hours after coming to the office, I was drained. But I couldn’t resist writing a two-line story of more than 20 poll watchers who were hospitalized because of food poisoning. Sometimes, the adrenaline rush of news can be a natural high.

Breaking ground

The website is getting noticed.  

This week, Ging Reyes’s story on Rudy Distrito hit the frontpage of The Manila Times. Stories by Liza Reyes and other business reporters are regularly making it to the frontpages of Business Mirror. A story by Rodney Jaleco on the US Senate hearings on extrajudicial killings got a mention on Ellen Tordesillas’s blog. And some of our website stories are being lifted almost verbatim and published on the frontpage of The Philippine Chronicle.  

Today, two of our stories were taken by Agence France Presse – a story on gambling nuns and another on the International Parliamentary Union.  

I love my job. 

***  

On a side note, I did two story pitches (Willy Miller and Sentosa nurses) that were actually accepted by the newsdesk. I also wrote three stories today that earned a byline and all three had something to do with Social Weather Stations surveys.   The first story was about Lozano’s threat to block pre-election surveys published by SWS. This was really strange because I didn’t even pursue the story. Leo Laroza just decided to grant me an interview after he asked for a favor.  

The second and third stories are connected. Both DSWD Sec. Esperanza Cabral and NAPC chairman Domingo Panganiban gave the same reason why hunger and self-rated poverty is rising in the Philippines.  

The reason? Bad weather, man.  

 *** 

Strangely enough though, the most satisfying thing about the week was actually doing management work. On Tuesday, a five-man meeting on a colleague’s peccadilloes turned to an impromptu bull session. Painful, yes, but necessary. I came out of that meeting with a renewed outlook on employee-boss relationships, which was brought home by The Wife’s comment that my “outbursts” can be considered a negative by some.

My baby fell ill of a viral infection, which gave me a lot of sleepless nights. Another subordinate relayed an unfortunate incident on a bus during one of her coverages, which had me applauding her guts.  Finally, one of the writers and an OJT were hit by a tricycle outside the office on their way home. I had to go to barangay hall and try to act the heavy by saying that we would file charges, which were not pursued.  

I did more 12-hour days this week than any time in recent memory. When Friday ended, I was exhausted yet, oddly enough, fulfilled. 

It’s nice to make a difference once in awhile.   

The itch

This week, I had the itch to write something of my own for the news site and actually earn a byline. So on Monday, I called up Sen. Ramon Magsaysay who granted me an exclusive interview on what he thought about the Bolante probe. I also called up Harry Roque who confirmed some details for me about the junking of Bolante’s asylum bid. As background, I culled stuff from old stories and wrapped it up with a quote from Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas before posting.

A few minutes later, I got a call from Magsaysay, thanking me for the write-up. Man, was I thrilled! Someone actually read something I wrote and thanked me for it.

‘Ombudsman sitting on Bolante probe’
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/topofthehour.aspx?StoryId=68100

Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr. on Monday urged the Office of the Ombudsman to speed up its investigation on ex-agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante’s involvement in the P728-million fertilizer fund scam following reports that his asylum bid was junked by the Chicago, Illinois immigration court last week.

On Tuesday, I also had the itch to do coverage and get more exclusives. So I attended the Janero Bar forum and was able to talk to NTC’s Danilo Cuenca and shoot questions to Adel Tamano, spokesman of the Genuine Opposition. Prospero Pichay and Nikki Coseteng were there but were of no use because they did not say anything that we haven’t heard before. I actually felt story for Coseteng because no one was asking her questions.

During the one-on-one, I was able to get this one story from Cuenca. Not exactly groundbreaking but exclusive nonetheless.

NTC: Candidates can sue malicious texters
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=68240

The National Telecommunications Commission on Tuesday said candidates could file criminal charges against individuals who send malicious text messages against their campaign.

Now I have two more articles in the pipeline — one on James Dickenson and political reporting in the US — and another on piracy of church music, after getting an interview with Pucci.

It’s actually fun to write this stuff.