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At this time marks the top of my McLuhan Fellowship. I write this article on March 13, the day I gave my final McLuhan lecture on the College of the Philippines Baguio.
To these not acquainted with the Canadian embassy’s Marshall McLuhan Fellowships for Excellence in Journalism, it’s mainly a talking tour, throughout which the guy of that 12 months can elevate consciousness about an pressing situation within the media.
I went on the Canadian leg in February final 12 months, which took me to 5 Canadian cities. The Philippine leg, which started in November 2025, took me to College of the Philippines Cebu, Silliman College in Dumaguete Metropolis, Iloilo’s West Visayas State College, College of St. La Salle in Bacolod, and eventually, UP Baguio.
In all of those journeys I used to be accompanied by the embassy’s head of public affairs, Carlo Figueroa. He has accompanied each fellow to each lecture, since 2005. It takes a sure individual to have the ability to journey, handle, and make snug every McLuhan Fellow, with personalities and habits as assorted because the islands of the Philippine archipelago. But when anybody can do it, it’s Carlo.
What makes the McLuhan Fellowship particular, and prestigious, is that you just don’t apply for it. The man is chosen by the Canadian embassy from a pool of Jaime V. Ongpin Journalism Seminar panelists, who’re, in flip, chosen by the Middle for Media Freedom and Accountability, based mostly on their physique of labor the earlier 12 months.
As I look again on my McLuhan journey, I understand that it allowed me to discover my transition from reporter to newsroom supervisor.
It was a transition that surprises even me typically. As a result of I distinctly recall a second after I was a twenty-something reporter, knee-deep in protection within the mountain forests of Abra, after I promised myself that I’d by no means, ever not be a reporter. I vowed that I’d by no means turn out to be an editor or a supervisor in any type. I beloved being a reporter an excessive amount of.
Then the Duterte presidency occurred. These years as a full-fledged political reporter overlaying Malacañang solid me within the hearth of hostile beat reporting and an investigate-against-all-odds starvation.
The cruel truths of the Duterte administration have been positively a narrative that wanted to be advised. However I discovered myself interested in one other story: the story of how we’re telling tales, and the way weak Philippine journalism is within the face of populist, authoritarian figures like Duterte. It was surprising to me, idealistic and younger as I used to be, to see how simply the “presstitutes” narrative might unleash vitriol and hate for journalists.
Who’s responsible? That’s an limitless debate. However what we will’t afford to debate on is the issue of belief in society, and that we have to restore it.
So I took an interest within the means of restore. It was my focus of examine throughout my John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford College. And now, as head of neighborhood, a every day observe.
What makes me stand up within the morning is understanding that my job is about conserving newsroom journalism alive. Perhaps my twenty-something-reporter self is disillusioned. However my thirty-something-newsroom-manager self would hug that youthful me and say: that is for you. In a method, I’m nonetheless honoring the dream of my youthful self, as a result of the work I do as we speak is about preserving the job of the reporter, and hopefully making it higher.
The problem that I and different newsroom managers face is to search out new methods of creating impartial journalism maintain itself. A artistic destruction occurring in journalism, and I get to dive in headfirst. My staff and I’ve launched profitable crowdsourcing and crowdfunding campaigns; pioneered a “conversational” type of journalism the place our readers get to be a part of our reporters’ interviews with newsmakers; used AI for policy-informing neighborhood consultations; gone across the nation holding city halls, workshops, and fora, and extra.
In all of the cities I’ve visited, the native journalists I communicate with all agree that the trade as we all know it’s in bother. Many newspapers and stations have closed store, leaving information desserts in lots of communities. Newsrooms are shedding good folks due to restricted budgets, made even smaller by shrinking promoting income, which in flip is because of numerous causes starting from generative AI search, to platforms like Fb lessening the information you see in your feeds.
It’s not shocking then that journalists who can strike out on their very own achieve this as information creators. That’s all effectively and good, and my biggest respect to those that excel in that type of storytelling. However I believe the world loses quite a bit too if newsrooms die out.
Newsrooms are the manifestation of journalism as a collective endeavor. A reporter can inform a narrative, however our neighborhood progress staff helps that story attain extra folks. Our manufacturing staff helps inform tales in video. Our civic engagement staff brings that story to communities, by on-ground occasions, then funnels these communities’ sentiments again to the newsroom in a virtuous cycle of trust-building. Our gross sales staff finds corporations and establishments prepared to work with our newsroom in ways in which pay the payments, however keep inside moral boundaries.
Newsrooms are a coaching floor for compelling storytellers, permitting younger folks to be taught, make errors, with that cushion of help, safety, and mentorship. And whether or not they determine to remain and assist the newsroom, or go off on their very own as particular person creators, then that’s nonetheless another nice storyteller added to the world.
Newsrooms permit journalists to give attention to gathering info and reporting, as a result of different groups, with their very own experience, are centered on distributing that report, and discovering methods to pay for the price of impartial journalism. Not all reporters wish to be content material creators, as a result of that requires talent units, and worries, not everybody desires to be loaded with. Newsrooms are blissful to offer that, and extra.
I suppose what I get pleasure from about my new position is the view. Whenever you’re a reporter, you’re, in a method, imagined to have tunnel imaginative and prescient. You go for depth, getting nerdy in regards to the nuances and technicalities of your area of experience or assigned sector. As a newsroom supervisor, you have to have a wider view of issues: it’s not simply in regards to the story, however how the story is advised, who will get to learn or watch that story, and if, in actual fact, that’s the proper story to inform now.
That is the journey I shared with all the faculties and establishments I visited throughout my McLuhan Fellowship. To all the scholars, division heads, deans, fellow journalists, and fellow residents who organized and attended the talks, my heartfelt thanks. Seeing the help folks have for Rappler and for journalism typically actually lifted my spirits. Each selfie somebody asks for, each group of scholars who approaches me after my discuss, each one that shakes my hand, has made me really feel valued and seen.
To the Embassy of Canada, and Carlo, thanks for conserving this fellowship alive for the good thing about Philippine journalism. – Rappler.com
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