CDN Day Desk Editor Doris Bongcac give news writing tips to students from different public and private high schools in the cities of Mandaue, Cebu and Lapulapu during the Siloy Campus Journalism lecture-workshop at the J Centre Mall.
CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO
Seventeen years ago, Arnel Cortes was seated on a desk with a sheet of paper as his battlefield and a ballpoint pen as his physical weapon.
His mission: do the work of a copy editor and succeed in cleaning up an article and submit a polished, grammatically correct and logical article using copyediting and proofreading tools or marks.
It was the 2004 National Press Conference held in Santa Cruz, Laguna, where Arnel was declared as one of the winners in the competition’s copyreading category.
Today, the 29-year-old senior high school teacher of Labogon National High School faces the same battlefield but this time as a school paper adviser and coach who is training and guiding his students to be successful in campus journalism.
“Being a former campus journalist makes me a better coach because I know what my students are going through. (But) they are more advanced compared to my time because of the technology that they experience now which we didn’t have back then. But the same rules in journalism apply,” says Arnel, a graduate of Bachelor of Secondary Education major in Communication Arts at the University of San Carlos (USC).
In his high school years at the Mandaue City Science High School, Arnel served as editor in chief of the school paper, The Sciber Files.
In USC, he was a staff writer of the Education Department’s official publication, The Scope.
“This (Siloy Campus Journalism Lecture-Workshop) brought me back to the time when I was a student competing in (DepEd) press conferences,” he recalled.
Teacher Arnel Cortes (left) of the Labogon National High School poses for CDN team. (Right) Campus journalists write their articles during the news writing workshop.
CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJ0
Arnel was one of the 58 teachers who participated in the Siloy Campus Journalism Lecture-Workshop held on September 2 at the J Centre Convention Hall in Mandaue City.
A total of 125 high school students from 18 public and private schools in the cities of Cebu, Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue attended the lecture-workshop which included topics on news, feature and editorial writing and photojournalism.
This is CDN’s commitment to the community as it fulfills its brand promise of “journalism that builds communities.”
“We started this initiative last year as a joint project of the marketing/advertising and editorial departments to help train our next generation of journalists. CDN has a wealth of experience and expertise in this field and we are open to share these free of charge to our partner schools,” says Pia
Jean Velasquez-Seno, CDN assistant vice president and chief sales and marketing officer.
CDN partnered with J Centre and Global Business Power for the September 2 leg of the campus journalism series.
The session last week was Arnel’s first formal training as a school paper adviser.
Since he started teaching in a public high school in 2011, Arnel has been committed to performing his duties as adviser of the Accounting, Business and Management track in relation to the K to 12 program.
After college graduation in 2009, Arnel immediately worked for a call center company where he was employed for two years.
In 2011, he became a teacher at Labogon National High School.
He finished his Master of Education–English as a Second Language at the University of the Philippines Cebu last June 2017.
In Labogon National High School, Arnel said most of the students belong to families of informal settlers.
He said that understanding their culture and their way of life was a challenge for him.
“There were cases of thefts in the school and cutting classes. During my first few months, they really challenged my ability to teach and my patience,” he shared.
Arnel said the teaching profession requires knowledge, skills and values. It can be exhausting with the available teaching units, classes to manage and reports to be filed. This is why some teachers lose the passion or the energy to be excited in their job.
But not Arnel.
He continues to be inspired by his students, fellow teachers and the people he meets along the way in his journey as an educator.
He considers his first Siloy Campus Journalism lecture-workshop experience as a major reason why “my journalism flame continues to burn.”
“It is inspiring to meet and listen to people who have practiced the craft for many years and they still remain passionate in what they do,” he said.