A Seminar-Workshop on Journalism

Despite my hectic schedule during the launch of my book Around the Americas in 60 Days, I yielded to the request of the Department of Education Division Office of Vigan City through DepEd Laoag education supervisor Lloyd Rosquita to be one of the resource speakers for the Division Seminar-Workshop for School Paper Advisers and Campus Journalists. It was attended by around 300 participants from all the elementary and secondary schools of Vigan City.

I met education supervisors Marie Christine Reyes and Felipa Regaspi who organized this program. I was introduced to the teaching faculty members and other administrators.

I was tasked to lecture on photojournalism. I gave the participants tips on how to cover an unfolding event or story and even encouraged the photojournalists to always go on a photo shoot to hone their skills. I was surprised to learn and see that they use the film camera. It was imposed on them to use such to give them a good training on photography. I found that the participants enjoyed watching my photography slide show presentation. I later asked them to go on a shoot inside the campus and developed their film and layout them in the afternoon.

I also discussed feature writing. I shared my experience in writing articles and showed my published articles in the national dailies and magazines. I even showed to them my recently published book. They were inspired. I encouraged them to continue writing on whatever topics. Later, I demanded them all to write a feature article and selected the top 10 best articles.

This was a fun-filled seminar. The participants were so eager to learn. More training should be done for the photojournalists in handling and operating a professional camera.