Media Experts Urge Campus Journos to Stand Up for the Truth and Fight Disinformation

“A journalist’s only bias should be for the truth.” 

Thus said seasoned author and journalist Joel Pablo Salud as he addressed Lifenews staffers during the annual Lifenews Journalism Workshop held last August 12 at the MGCNLCA Lecture Hall, with the theme “Innovating Campus Journalism.”

Salud talked about the topic, “How to Make Campus Journalism More Engaging and Relevant to the Youth and Choosing the Stories That Matter”.  He shone light on the truth about being a journalist, including the difficulties and struggles of being one.

“Journalism is not for the faint of heart.” Salud stressed repeatedly, “You can’t choose the stories that matter. They just happen as you go along.” 

He shared his experiences, stories, and challenges in being a journalist, emphasizing on the addictiveness of the truth that makes all the hardships and dangers worth it. The renowned author also discussed the ABCs of journalism in creating relevant stories, which stands for accuracy, brevity and context.

Before Salud’s session, GMA’s Senior Manager for Social Media Justin Joyas kicked off the event with a talk on how to keep journalism alive in the age of social media. 

Joyas stressed on the negative impact social media has on journalism, including the  ease of downloading and reposting content without proper context or information, particularly with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI).  Joyas highlighted  three main ways to combat this issue: verifying images through reverse image search, noticing minor faults in the images, and verifying information using the help of landmarks and identifying features in the images. 

Lifenews Head Adviser Mrs. Richelle Kho also gave a brief news writing and feature writing refresher lecture, followed by a section specific workshop to develop the staffers’ specific skills.

The Lifenews Journalism Workshop is held every year for the staffers to continue honing their craft and become better writers, as well as prepare them for journalism competitions.