the things i didn't say (a love letter to the young ejap)

"while my heart is still warm,
let me say this....
    with the honesty of a dying swan.
i never loved you.......
      but i always worshipped the air that you breathed, the ground where you walked, even the bed where you rested .." -- mahatma gandah.

it was a sunny afternoon when the bus full of noisy and young journalists left the san miguel complex in ortigas to tagaytay. it was a friday, and i was one of the eager greenhorns that would spend the weekend out of town to get re-educated on the whys and hows of business news writing, of learning the basics about the economy, of the financial markets, of investments, of free trade.

i was twenty three and had spent a just few weeks in my new beat, the central bank, where the most intimidating, the most seasoned business and economic journalists were assigned. i had thick black hair, smooth skin, especially on the face, agile, bit shy, bit introverted, dressed formally most of the time because in my former beat, the malacanang press corps, had a dress code. no shirts, jeans and rubber shoes allowed, especially inside the palace.

basically i looked like this then:

(ok, not really. but close. hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!)

since i was new in the beat, i hardly had any friends. i was quiet the whole two-hour trip, alone and undisturbed like the dead, enjoying the moment, sometimes falling into sleep, as the bus snaked through manille's labyrinthine, narrow, crowded streets, then emerge into the spacious highways and freeways with rice fields and concrete houses beside the roads, where dogs were barking, street vendors were selling banana fritters and fresh fruits for the summer season.

it was a nice break after a week of heavy, stressful coverage.

my heartbeat ran wild as we entered the hotel where the seminar would be held. a banner was prominently displayed on the gate -- "welcome delegates to the xxth ejap (for economic journalists association of the philippines) - smc (san miguel corp) business journalism seminar."

i was proud. i belonged.

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after checking in, freshening up, resting for a bit, we were all gathered inside one of the hotel's seminar rooms. the president, a senior colleague at the paper where i was reporting, welcomed all of us. the soft-spoken president, who was then moving out of the country to try his luck in the former british colony, gave us a glimpse of what to expect for the weekend seminar.

then he introduced the next speaker, an editor of a business paper, the competitor of my employer, actually, who discussed the rigors of economic reporting. one thing that stood out from his nearly two-hour talk was the acronym kiss. now, i was not a trained journalist because i studied business management in college, so it was all new to me.

kiss, it turned out, meant keep it short and simple. 

let your copy kill your readers with the simplicity of short, easy to understand words and sentences. no complex, complicated structures, jargons, economic theories straight out of a text book or an economic professor's mouth. do that, he said and you will lose your reader right after the first sentence. always use the active voice and prefer verbs ending in "ing".

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i was seated at the back, taking some notes, listening with undivided attention despite the banter and laughters coming from more senior reporters rows ahead of me.

you can always tell the greenhorns from the more seasoned reporters in press cons, seminars, cocktails, among other events. the greenhorns are quiet, ready to take down notes, listening, shy, eager to learn. the senior ones are just the opposite. they laugh a lot, some even loudly, ask intimidating questions, talk loudly, and hardly take down notes. it seems like they have their own world.

too, senior reporters tend to be older, fatter, have bulging mid-sections, with greying hair, wearing more expensive clothes and accessories, smoking, drinking, easy going. the young ones, of course, while some do drink and smoke and dress up quite well, are mostly thinner (i used to have a twenty-nine-inch waist line, can you imagine that?), flat stomachs, hardly talking.

after the seminar, i was a new person. i decided to study further and took up mba just so i could better understand the complex economic theories -- gross domestic product, gross national product and what's the difference between the two, why is gdp widely used globally as the more acceptable gauge of an economy's health, inflation, money supply, domestic liquidity, foreign exchange, interest rates both here and abroad, and their relationships. how they affect each other.

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last weekend, it was my turn to share my views as the "seasoned" reporter.

this time i did not take the bus. i was with three other lovely friends in a car, braving the five-six-hour trip to baguio city. the seminar was still held on a weekend and we left manille on a friday afternoon. it was summer, so it was sunny. but the similarities between my first ejap seminar and last weekend did  not end there. nor the differences.

we spent the trip talking, laughing, gossiping, reminiscing. this time, i did most of the talking. i was also the one with the loudest laughter. too, my waistline has grown to thirty-four inches, i have a beer belly from  a generally sedentary, lazy, drink-filled lifestyle, greying hair from over thinking everything even the minute details of life, lines on the face, tired eyes.

i was forty five and had been around for soo long. had covered a lot of important local and international events, had spoken to so many global leaders not just in politics, but in business as well, particularly bankers, fund managers, economists, ceos, cfos, even celebrities like apl.ap, renowned international fashion designer michael cinco, and had met ms. universe dayanara torres and ms. saigon lea salonga.

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and so it is...

when the current ejap president dar asked me to talk in the seminar, i was hesitant. not because i was being a snob (i had long vanished that word in my limited dictionary), but because i was never comfortable talking in public. yes, i talk a lot in front of my friends, but not when there are strangers around. believe it or not, i am an introvert. i am shy at heart.

also, public speaking is one of my biggest fears, next only to flying. maybe because i was brought up in a strict military family where talking was discouraged (us kids were always ordered to stay out of the living room whenever my parents had visitors) that's why i never developed my public speaking skills.

apart from speaking in short programs in college and in high school when i ran for the student council, or when we recruited young writers to join the college editors guild of the philippines, i rarely talk in public.  i hate standing in front of a crowd, microphone on hand. it's like being in a death chamber.

the last time i spoke to a "crowd" (just a tiny hotel room full of bankers) was during my last stint as an international financial journalist in hong kong covering bonds, when my editor asked me to act as moderator of one of the panel discussions on bonds. but it was fine.  it was a small group, we were all seated on a round table facing each other, no microphones.

also, most of the bankers in attendance were my sources whom i had spoken lots of times on the phone or during coffees, lunches, dinners, or cocktails.

speaking in ejap was different. i no longer know most of the members. i know how vicious some reporters are and could be (i should know. i was once like that. unforgiving of other's mistakes.), and what if i commit a major blunder or faux pas while talking (like wearing thick overcoat in the french riviera during the peak of summer). i hate to be the butt of jokes in every beat the following week.

but i simply can't say "no" to dar. he is a darling. a sweetheart. the new selfie queen. i have high respects for his work, the way he pursued his exclusive stories. no chos this time!

so i said "yes", even if my instincts were screaming "no". even my army of managers, pr and road managers, personal secretary, make-up artist, photographers, were all against it. you have nothing much to gain, they warned, but definitely a lot to lose.

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i asked a close friend, the award-winning business journalist iris what to say. she sent me some ideas. then i wrote some of my own on index cards.

but i did not prepare a speech. i want it to be a spur of the moment thing. like sex. i did not want it to be formal. i did not want it to sound like i was a teacher talking in front of students. i want it to be conversational, coffee shop like talk among friends. where anyone is free to interrupt my talk to ask a question or share her views, or just to shut me up because i am boring her.

i prefer it to be a sharing of thoughts, ideas and jokes.

it was a relief when i learned that i was the first speaker. even if it meant waking up very early in the morning just to make it at nine. at least it would be over soon and i could spend the whole day just listening to other speakers, taking it easy. but at the last minute, i became the last because one of the speakers had to leave early for another appointment in manille. i reluctantly agreed. haha.

the whole day inside the seminar room i was fretting. especially since most of the speakers were brilliant, captivating, and knowledgeable about their assigned topics.

what kept me going were the encouraging words from other reporters, even the new ones whom i haven't met yet. when a new reporter arrived and sat on the empty chair beside me, he asked if i had already spoken. when i said not yet, he said: thank god. i really want to hear you speak. afraid!

then another reporter said they were all excited about what i was going to say. yes, the pressure kept on building up and i wanted to flee. instead, i peed a lot of times.

it did not help that all the other speakers were well-prepared complete with high-tech slides. i did not have any slide, except my index cards.

(i enjoyed central bank deputy governor diwa guinigundo's talk, bdo's jonathan ravelas and aim's professor cruz. guinigundo and ravelas were, of course, former sources, while it was my first time to meet professor cruz, simply one of the best speakers i had ever met with complicated, out-of-the-box theories and ideas about identifying business problems.)

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i was supposed to talk at around three in the afternoon. but some speakers talked lengthily, and some got a lot of questions during the open forum. so that my turn came at around seven, when everyone was tired, had a headache, famished, suffering from information overload, and eager for a drink or two. i should know, i was already feeling that way too.

i simply wanted the day to end. no sad songs. or farewells.

so i kept my talk short. skipping some of the topics that i had scribbled on my index cards.

luckily, the audience was attentive even if it was already late. i got interesting questions, some discussions. i wished i had been more interesting, more alive, gave more jokes.

(that's my best friend and former ejap president mitch, pretty in blue shirt, first row, pretending to listen to my talk intently and suppressing the hikab and the tawa. next to her is another good friend karl who replaced me in bloomberg.  chos!)

please forgive me.

please accept my apologies if i disappointed you all. yes, it was my first crack at public speaking and i was really nervous the whole time. so i opted to just sit down because i might fell off in my five-inch stilettos (manolos, in case you want to know). but it was not an excuse. promise, i'll be better next time if you give me another chance. no chos this time!

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anyway...after the very long introduction, here we are.

the reason why i am writing this post. which is to share to the young ejap members some of my notes in the index cards that i skipped simply because like them i was already tired, famished and wanted to rest.

as i had mentioned during my short, uneventful talk, i had nothing new to say. i simply wanted to share what i had learned during the course of my journalism career. if they find them useful, good. if not, they can simply treat it (listening to me) as one of their worst nightmares. double chos!!!!!!!!

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- don't be afraid to ask questions. even the most stupid ones. this is how you learn. don't be intimated by the snooty, more seasoned reporters like myself. nor of the source.

- always be prepared. at all times. even if it's a phone interview, a one-on-one, a press conference, an ambush interview, a talk during cocktails.

- how do you prepare? read a lot. read what your competitors have written or are writing. read the financial times. the wall street. dow jones, reuters, bloomberg, afp. watch bbc. bloomberg tv. study their styles, how they write the news. take note of the people they have interviewed, try to get their phone numbers and talk to them. meet them in person. shake their hands.

be curious. about your beat. about other beats. the world outside. know what's going on in international financial markets and try to connect them with what's happening in the philippines.

talk to experts. economists. professors (ms. winnie monsod used to be my favourite source, as well as professor leonor briones even before she joined the government as a treasurer). senior reporters. editors. ask what is news for them. learn from them. get pointers.

-go out and meet people. this is how you earn the trust of your news sources. this is also how you learn who among your sources you can trust, and who are those who are just trying to make bola. haha.

-double-check everything. read your story twice before sending them. triple check facts, especially numbers. remember, numbers can be tricky, like a playboy boyfriend. learn basic math like computing percentage changes. learn to love numbers because there is no escaping them in business and economic journalism. if you hate math and numbers, then explore other options like entertainment or lifestyle reporting (my first love, by the way).

-explore as many beats as you can. don't be choosy, even if it's the beat where the stories are usually relegated in inside pages or even ignored most of the time. remember, just like actors (there are no small actors, only small roles), there are no small beats, only small reporters. the importance of the news depends sometimes  or most of of the time on how you write it, the people you are talking and quoting, your choice of quotes, how well-researched is the piece, among others.

how would you know if it's time to move to another beat?

first, if you are so familiar with your sources that you feel like it's your obligation to defend them when they are being criticized.

second, if your sources are too familiar with you that they can tell you casually that they did not like the report that you have written. remember, it's not your job to write only pleasing, positive news about your beat. they have well-paid, less overworked public relations experts to do that.

also, if you can already second guess what your sources will say, when you can already write your stories with your eyes closed, or if your sources trust you enough to let you write a quote or comment for them, then it's time for another adventure in another beat.

mind you, it's fun learning new subjects, meeting new sources, forging ties with other reporters in other beats. trust me, they will all come handy later in life.

(this is actually one of my biggest regrets when i was in the newspaper business. not covering other beats. i was stuck with the banking and finance beat. that's why when i joined the wires here in manille, where as a satellite bureau we had to cover almost everything, i found it difficult to write about news other than banking, finance and monetary policy. it would have been fun covering energy, agri, dti, pse, stock market, private sector, telecom, transpo.)

-let your stories fly. an editor once told me that news is literature in a hurry. it is. so keep it short and simple. kiss. avoid flowery words, complex sentences. don't apply your gabriel garcial marquez or salman rushdie inspired prose here. you are not competing for the nobel for literature.

remember, if you want to write fiction, don't be in the newspaper business. be a poet. be the next allen ginsberg. or jack kerouac.

but don't be boring also. spice up your headlines. play with words.

-don't rely on press releases. a press release is not a story. be relevant and justify your existence in this world. stop writing one-source stories. always get one or two other voices. you never know what you will get from talking to others. the bigger news might be their comments, or leads, or the implications of such a press statement.

-always watch out for the golden quote that will make your stories fly. don't settle for cliche quotes like -- "the stock market is up because there are more buyers than sellers."

or worse: "exporters want a weak peso." duh?!

-stop using jargons. cliches. leave them to professors, economists, lawyers, etc. your job is to communicate to as many people as possible. that's why you are a journalist, not an analyst.

-always write the "nut graf". the why should i care about your story. even a short one.

-stop using stand alone figures as the lead. or the news. it doesn't make sense. always try to compare. from year ago, a quarter ago, etc. the story is the change in the numbers, not the present one. like: "the philippine budget deficit tripled in first quarter of the year from a year ago, as the government exceeded its programmed spending during the period to boost the sagging economy."

if it's a non-recurring figure, say a new company announced its capex for this year, then look at its competitors, how much is another company in the same industry is spending for capex. don't be lazy. you are born in the high tech world. use it.

so what if: "company xxx is spending P100 billion pesos this year to build more tecom networks."

better: "company xx is spending a record P100b billion pesos this year to build more telecom networks.." or even better: "company xxx is allotting the highest capex among telecom companies in the country, as the newest player in the industry wants to capture a bigger share of the market that's currently dominated by so and so.."

-look for ways to make your stories stand out among the competition. suggest graphs, photos, side bars to your editors. believe me, they will welcome it.

-always think outside of the box. don't be a walking cliche!!

-own the news. it's your by-line. work with your editors on how to make your copy even better. actually, your editor is your best friend in the industry, not the other reporters in the beat.

if you hate your editor with a vengeance, or you simply don't like your job, then dahlin, time to say goodbye. maybe this cruel business is not for you. be a movie star. or a commercial model.

-having said that, once your story has been submitted to the editor, it is no longer yours. it becomes a collaboration between you, and a few others in the news room that have a say on your copy.

-don't take things personally. when you see a mistake on your news item the next day in the papers, just calmly inform your editor about it. don't dwell on it. move on. don't be angry. it happens even to the best among us.

now, it's a different matter if it keeps on happening. then maybe your editor needs help, or has to leave his post and explore other things in life. or maybe it's your fault too because you keep on submitting your story late, or you did not write it well.

-always make an effort to improve yourself. don't be contented of what you already know. believe me, one lifetime is not enough for us to know everything, even in your beat.

-be professional all the time. dress the part. look respectable. remember, you are your news organization's ambassador. never justify your being sloppy with the small salary that you are getting. dressing well has nothing to do with expensive clothes and accessories.

-be nice always and to everybody. especially the guards, secretaries. because they can help you locate your news sources when they are missing in the beat. or give you tips on whom they have met during the day. so that when your usual sources refused to tell you what transpired during the meeting, you can always call and ask the others in the room.

-lastly, and most importantly, if you want to get rich, then this is not the profession for you. as an editor once told me, in the philippines, journalism is like the priesthood: there's a vow of poverty.

if you want a fabulous life, try putting up your own public relations company.

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that's all, fairies, witches, bitches, princesses, queens and pa-queens. have great easter break.

(ps: some photos were taken from other reporters' facebook accounts and even ejap's. no copyright infringements intended.)

more stories about the other "events" in my next post -- this time the fun part, with juicy tidbits. hahahaha.