I Develop Content to Satisfy My Need to Connect

When I was a copy editor at an international multimedia trade publication that doesn’t have print circulation in my country, I learned so much about magazine production, technical writing and editing, manufacturing processes, product types, and raw materials. The structured and rigid environment trained me to take the “dead” in “deadline” seriously and peg quality standards at the highest level possible. There was neither room nor excuse for error, lapse in judgment, tardiness, and mediocrity. Everyone I worked with was an unabashed perfectionist, and we all pulled and pushed each other up.

It was a welcome change from many of the things that I did previously: writing about foreign countries’ political, economic, and tourism landscapes for a property investment agency that targets rich people from first-world countries; managing a business newsletter; and developing textbook and test materials for pre-school and grade school abroad.

Sure, I learned to easily catch a wayward comma and that pesky double space, but what was the point?

But through all the country profiles, academic materials, magazine verticals, and industry reports that I wrote, edited, and collaborated in, I felt disconnected from the content and the audience. Despite knowing products and trends to be launched several seasons into the future, I felt disconnected from what’s happening. I learned about foreign countries’ legal and common practices when buying real estate, and different ways to communicate with multinational colleagues and readers, but I wasn’t able to use my profession to dig deeper into my own society. Sure, I learned to easily catch a wayward comma and that pesky double space, but what was the point?

Those years producing foreign material for a foreign target market sent me itching to work for a local media outfit and get in touch with Filipino communities. This hunger to be more involved at the ground level drove my job hunt in local media.

Landing the Associate Editor position at a fitness magazine and then a technology magazine shortly after–both 100 percent Filipino titles from a 100 percent Filipino publisher based in the Philippines–made me look forward to all the local topics that I finally have the opportunity to give exposure to. So many shared interest groups, real people, startups, social issues, and niche hobbies started to fill my mental list of features, and I am happy that a handful of them has pushed through.

Being just an editor–now the Managing Editor–is still quite limiting. Of course, I get to suggest topics to feature, but I have no full control over what makes it to the final lineup and, ultimately, to print. And this is mostly true in any editorial team and publication. Aside from differences in taste, among the usual considerations are logistics, and time and budget constraints. Shady practices might even take industry politics and competition into account.

Content finds its way out there–and to you–no matter what platform.

All these have the power to pull you, the reader, away from the story that you could’ve learned about, making my disconnect as a journalist equate to your disconnect as an audience. But until I come up with a more permanent or effective solution, I will continue to find stories and do my best to get them published at any print or digital media outfit that I find myself contributing to, on my own website or blog, or even on my social media accounts.

Which brings us to another point: content finds its way out there–and to you–no matter what platform.

As I learned from my undergraduate macroeconomics class, there will always be a disconnect between wages and costs, just as there will always be a disconnect between us and that could-have-been story. And so the goal is not to do the impossible and eradicate the gap altogether but to reduce it and bring myself–and, eventually, you–closer to the story and finally make that connection.

This article first appeared on http://www.lapispusher.com/2016/04/journalism-create-content-connection/?utm_source=crosspost&utm_medium=medium-post&utm_campaign=connecting.