we had this project called SOFA-spotlight on filipino authors. however, our teacher allowed us to interview journalists, songwriters, cartoonists, etc.
one group decided to bring their chosen person in class last week. she was Doreen Yu, editor of Philippine Star's sunday magazine. she was a very good speaker. everyone was listening to her. after she left, i even heard comments saying that she really was a good speaker.
one of the things she said was, "the glamour in being a journalist only lasts 17 seconds. i counted it." she said this after saying that people are wrong for thinking that being a journalist is a glamorous job. according to her, it's not. she has to meet deadlines, and by deadlines she means deadlines. i am not sure if this was her term but she said something like faintlines. deadlines are different from faintlines because deadlines mean you need to accomplish the task in this exact time, unlike faintlines that you can somehow delay it. (i am not sure if this was what she meant)
there's also this thing called ACDC--attack and collect, defend and collect. it's a dirty thing in the journalism world. a person pays a writer to attack someone, or to defend someone. when she was asked if she has experienced this, her reply was no. she explained the reason. she worked for betty go-belmonte, and betty go-belmonte had a reputation that she would never accept money for "dirty purposes." "as a consequence, nobody tried to bribe me," she ended the story with this line(or at least close to that line)
when she was aksed what her message is for aspiring writers, her only answer was READ!!! she even said that she reads everything, even cookbooks. i wrote a post about me being an aspiring writer, and now i know what i have to do. unfortunately, i don't enjoy reading that much.
some random facts/trivias:
her first language was chinese, then tagalog, then english
she said that betty go-belmonte did some bible-cutting
she doesn't accept calls when she's working(at least most of the time she's working)
she doesn;t like doing news articles because news articles have a certain format
she writes the way she talks
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1 comment:
Friday pa 'to, a.
Anyway, I thought it was funny when she said, "I don't take bribes for the simple reason that no ones has bribed me." or something to this effect.
I wonder how she counted how long the glamour part is.
Our SoFA's authour was just in the college, my classmate should have brought him to the class too.
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