Writer’s Awareness is Writer’s Press Freedom
October 9th, 2007 | by Fhen Macabasag |Last year, journalists and media peoples in the Philippines have become the front-page of all media print and broadcast materials. It is paradoxical that instead of authoring articles and writing production in the newspaper pages and columns, they become the principal subject of attention by the same publishing paper and media outlet that they work for. 2006 was one of the turbulent years of journalists, marking second to the world’s record of numerous media killings.
This 2007, journalists remain to be one of the most dangerous profession in the country. Writing is the most risky business of all. Journalists and writers in CEGP (College Editor’s Guild of the Philippines) understand well the perils of their chosen field work. With the current theme, “Arming Campus Journalists with Competence to Advocate Social Awareness and Press Freedom,” CEGP endeavors to invite school-based writers to attend in their convention in order to be aware of the recent happening in the media world especially within the campus domain and the society itself.
Social Journalism
Campus writers and journalists live in an environment within and outside the school premises. Their social realm is not merely confined in the four corner walls of a hallow classroom, rather goes beyond the periphery of campus ground. Schools and universities are not a solitary sanctuary separated from the community as we know it. They are however, part and fragments of a society possessing a distinct yet relative social function.
To put it in context, when there is a quantitative limitation for campus journalist’s seat in a specific school publication office, they are largely attributed to budgetary constraint for journalist’s scholarship within that school. Budget allocation for campus journalist comes from the national budget allocated to each public schools and universities. With the annual re-enactment of education budget and the escalating number of students, tuition and school fees increases and journalist’s scholarship decline in quantity.
In this picture, we can see already the underlying relationship between the school’s finances and government’s social programs. True, students and campus journalists in public schools and universities are scholars of our country, generally speaking. The education budget that they received comes from the citizen’s pocket, thereby campus writers and journalists, despite small in numbers, have the social responsibilities to do.
Conscious Writer
Social awareness is one among the many faces of social responsibilities of a student writer. To my mind, social awareness signifies the person’s conscious state of interpreting and comprehending a definite series and lineal events occurred and continually occurring in one’s specific society. These events are a living historical scenario happening in the present with the outcome from the past reflecting in it to shape the future. Writing then in the writer’s social awareness is a catalyst in molding a definite history and time.
To be socially aware is to grapple a much higher level of consciousness, surpassing the ordinary mind. With the complex scene of events, campus writers feel the need to decipher them in an organized and harmonic mode. Through the wisdom of social awareness, one can transform one’s self into a productive social being — a conscious freedom writer.
Similar to professional media people, campus journalists constantly encounters repressions and harassments from the authorities, mostly from the outside. Press harassment takes in arrayed forms. Thus, it is socially relevant to arm campus journalists and writers with the knowledge and competence to advocate and advance for social awareness and press freedom. In possessing this competency, this same writers and journalists will be able to confidently write subjects that are significant to society’s interests. Furthermore, they can combat against curtailment of press rights and freedom.
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Fhen Macabasag Fhen Macabasag is a well-rounded Waraynon. His art is his life.
3 Responses to “Writer’s Awareness is Writer’s Press Freedom”
By Maverikjockey on Oct 16, 2007 | Reply
Haruy, nga pag-inagol!
By Maverickjockey on Oct 27, 2007 | Reply
This piece is a prime example of pure and unadulterated inanity, mediocrity and nonsense - in short, garbage.
That’s what one gets when one tries to bite what one could more than chew.
This is a case of a vain attempt of trying to be profound but only ends up as a mere mish-mash of words and phrases that has no point, no coherence, no sensible meaning, no better than a slapdash of ideas and concepts strung together without head, body or tail.
By Maverickjockey on Oct 30, 2007 | Reply
And this writer entertains the pretension of being considered an “intellectual”!