“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” –Benjamin Franklin

With Watchmen Daily Journal celebrating seven years in operation, the just over two years of personal involvement with the paper, first serving as desk editor, then editor-in-chief, has been quite the learning experience. Having the “Expat vs. Balikbayan” column as an outlet to discuss a variety of topics, particularly adjusting to living in Bacolod City after growing up in the United States, the work environment, along with the industry itself, has posed its own challenges – ones that are constantly being worked on and improved.

After studying journalism overseas and writing for newspapers since senior year of high school, entering the industry in Bacolod City, there are a myriad of patterns and habits that do not seem proper for the field, but have been accepted as such among local professionals. Beyond the daily duties of editing, revising, researching, and writing, there is also a matter of maintaining a certain standard that others seem to lack – where others seem content with offering meaningless statements from officials, Watchmen Daily Journal will provide context; when others work towards a more colloquial platform (whether intentional or not), Watchmen Daily Journal will strive to be professional and deliver the news in a way for everybody to understand.

Refusal to be another city rag

When first taking the job, immediately learned how informal everything was when it came to local news. Looking in from the outside, it is a completely foreign concept to refer to public officials merely by nickname or to abbreviate everything, making news articles look like a rapidly-typed text message. While others may argue it’s the “style” or just “how things are,” it is of the utmost importance that a newspaper presents itself as such and not as a rag.

Outside the country, such practices are reserved for the “trashy” publications one would find next to the supermarket cash register, with headlines proclaiming impossibilities or recounting the adventures of “Bat Boy.” While such publications are available for consumption, they also carry a poor reputation when it comes to integrity and quality.

While the AP Stylebook says “a nickname should be used in place of a person’s given name in stories only when it is the way the individual prefers to be known,” that should not be misconstrued as allowing for notable figures to be identified by a single name (unless one were referring to somebody like Madonna or Prince or Cher). Was once told nicknames were essential when crafting headlines because otherwise readers would not be able to identify the subject of the story; that’s assuming people are only reading headlines and not the story, if that is the case, then that poses a whole other challenge.

The local media culture is also one obsessed with acronyms and abbreviations. While in many cases, acronyms are necessary, when everything becomes an acronym, there’s no telling what the story is about. Some headlines published in the local area feature almost all abbreviations and acronyms, which, again, resembles garbled texting jargon. Why do that? Do writers not like typing those few extra keys? Is texting so prevalent, it takes precedent over proper sentence structure?

Then again, by just viewing local television commercials, it is apparent just how much speaking in abbreviated terms has dug into how people communicate (and not for the better). Macaroni salad is referred to as “mac salad” and deodorant as “deo” – and it all just sounds so obnoxious. However, while slang is fine when it comes to chatting with friends, it really has no place in the news – at least, a professional news organization.

Commercials driving the agenda

While every business must work with other companies financially, it is particularly appalling to see such financial connections driving the news agenda. Typically, media comes under fire for carrying a political agenda, as depicted in the way they present their news, but in Bacolod City, it has been revealed certain commercial entities appear to take precedent over the news of the day.

Admittedly, Watchmen Daily Journal has conducted such activity, but not in the way competitors have.

A national corporation wanted coverage in all of the local newspapers, which they were granted. When seeing all of the newspaper gathered together, Watchmen Daily Journal stood out – it was the only paper that chose not to eschew the main stories of the day for their commercial interests. While Watchmen Daily Journal kept the advertorial on the side, along with accompanying photos; other papers plastered it as their main headline, suggesting their financial interests are more important than informing the public of the real news of the day. While placing an advertorial on the cover does not seem like the most ethical of practices, the effort is still there to ensure the public is informed of the news first and not commercials.

Columns as promotional tools

Newspaper columns are supposed to be an outlet for people to express opinions. These opinions can span anything from politics to food to offering advice. My “Expat vs. Balikbayan” column discusses everything from culture clash encounters, personal experiences, and entertainment. However, have also come to find many columns are merely promotional pieces – a lot like the aforementioned corporate advertorial.

These writers often use their platform to boast about themselves or name-drop. In the end, the content services nobody but themselves.

There have also been many instances of encountering writers who are averse to revision. Editing and revision is a natural part of the process and to insist on one’s work remaining untouched before publishing, with grammatical errors, jumbled sentence structure, and all, would make both the writer and newspaper look bad; allowing such sloppiness for readers to pass would be irresponsible. The top priority of a newspaper is to tell a story and if the message is unclear because one repeats themselves too much or depends too heavily on the thesaurus and ends up using archaic and obsolete language in an effort to sound intelligent, the message is lost and it becomes a waste of space.

In addition, after submitting various travel features, have had entire pages in the newspaper documenting visits to South Korea, Hong Kong, a Mediterranean cruise, and New York City, cannot help but notice the contrast between my personal style and the assumed local version.

My travel pieces include text that document the experience and sights taken in during the trip, including tips and special finds during the holiday. In terms of pictures, they are all photos of the place itself (with the exception of a group shot taken with celebrity chef Anne Burrell at one of her New York City restaurants). Comparing it to pieces by other contributors, they instead discuss prominent people they encounter, often closing with a greeting to that person; and the pictures are primarily selfies and pictures of notable personalities with no sense of what the place looks like – one can’t call it a “travel” piece if there is no travel-related content.

However, given a recent Sunsilk commercial that depicts Sarah Geronimo starting a travel blog with her friends, their photo are just selfies with her hair flying in the wind, perhaps that is the local interpretation of a travel blog – documenting the person and not the destination.

Improvement

As editor-in-chief, the past few months have offered the great opportunity to solidify the move towards more professional content – less abbreviations, unnecessary acronyms, and slang; and more content and background. One of the primary snags with local reporting is the way reporters blindly regurgitate what anybody says and fail to take a more critical approach. Something that has become customary is looking back at previous comments certain figures have made and seeing glaring contradictions between what somebody said today and last month. Watchmen Daily Journal refuses to be a mouthpiece for public officials.

The style, while customary overseas, is a different structure for the more relaxed local industry. Not only will the more firm structure give the newspaper more integrity on the local scene, it will be seen as the single professional news publication out of Bacolod City. While everybody else keeps with the same lazy format, Watchmen Daily Journal will take those extra steps to ensure readers understand the story inside and out and not just what the politicians want the public to know./WDJ