A decade of recaps: Projects & milestones, 2005–2016
Working in media has led me through rich & various paths. Recalling my favorite work-related trysts in this piece.
What has truly been absolutely rewarding about the work we did was that it was not limited to simply churning out explainers for the platforms. Looking back, it comes to me as a surprise, the many ways in which we managed to “spice up” our department’s goals by adding side-projects and events — the most dear to my heart being our reading program, the Read-Along.
Read-Along hits
Twenty-five Simultaneous Read-Along Sessions from Batanes to Tawi-Tawi (2010). More commonly known as the What the hell were we thinking?! project (hehe). It started as a “challenge” from our President, who jokingly suggested holding twenty-five simultaneous Read-Along sessions across the country in time for the paper’s 25th anniversary celebrations later that year. The result: Twenty-five readings — five each for the Bureaus in Northern Luzon, Southern Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, and five in Metro Manila — held at exactly 10 a.m. on the first Saturday of December. Definitely one of the most challenging projects I had the opportunity to work for in my ten or so years in the paper — and yes, definitely one of my favorites. I’d do it again, in a heartbeat.
Here are a couple of things I wrote about that (behind the scenes, Murphy’s Law and all), plus about the Quill award we got for it the following year:
The Festival (2011–2016). Speaking of crazy Read-Along projects, here’s another favorite: The Festival, which is a marathon of Read-Along sessions held in the span of two days in a single venue. Kicking off in 2011 — the year after the simultaneous readings — we held the first one in UP, the second one in the Ninoy Aquino Park in Quezon City, and the next three in CCP. Last year, we brought the Festival ‘home’, and held it for the first time inside the office.
Truth be told, more than honing my organizing skills, the Read-Along taught me how to be a people-person: Through this project I was introduced to co-workers from other departments that I would otherwise have never been able to work with, simply because my editorial tasks in Research and their tasks in their respective departments had no chances of intersecting. More than that, the project also led me to connect with other stakeholders: Professional storytellers, celebrities (and their mothers, sometimes) and their managers and handlers, teachers, parents, and a host of other people that I wouldn’t have even met, had it not been for the program.
Research hits
The Benhur Luy special report. The opportunity to work with one of our veteran journalists in putting this special report together is certainly among the highlights of my life as a researcher. Link below contains all thirteen parts of it, including the post-script our then-publisher wrote about it.
The Young Heroes series. This was one of our last projects for our late editor-in-chief Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc. Link below features links to all the parts of this special report, which came out to commemorate National Heroes’ Day 2015. This series won the Best Investigative Report award from the Catholic Mass Media Awards last year.
The Inquirer Briefing. Launched in October 2016, the Inquirer Briefing is a whole-page infographic that comes out every Sunday. Such an honor to have worked alongside historian extraordinaire Manolo Quezon III, who is the page’s editor. Also: Anything that lets you get away with a title like, “The Libing and the Dead” is a precious thing.
Work-related travel
Here’s a little confession: I’m not that big of a traveler, much less an international traveler. I have never been outside of the country on leisure. By this I mean that all of my international travels have been on work-related assignments.
Since 2012, I have been fortunate enough to have been sent on coverages in Europe and around Asia.
Copenhagen (August 2012). My first time out of the country ever was to Denmark, and I was alone. I was invited by a big pharmaceutical company to tour their facilities and learn more about diabetes. I took a lot of photos (the first of my multi-part photo/essay series is below, while all of my Denmark-related posts can be found under this tag.) I also wrote a feature which appeared in the Sunday edition of the newspaper.
Poland (December 2013). Our trip to Warsaw was precious because we were there to receive an award for the Read-Along — the prestigious Silver World Young Reader Prize Award for Enduring Excellence from WAN-Ifra. At the time, the Read-Along was six years old. What a journey that was. Below are links to my round-up of the trip at the blog (it also had its own tag here) and a link to the article about the award.
China (September 2014). In 2014, I joined a group of Filipino journalists in a four-city familiarization tour with the Chinese Embassy, which took more than a week. This was the longest work-related trip I had. Also: We saw pandas. It was the highlight of my life.
Hong Kong (October 2015). My trip to Hong Kong was somehow last-minute; it was to accompany one of our veteran journalists in her lecture series at the Hong Kong Baptist University after she was named Society of Publishers in Asia’s Journalist of the Year. She talked about her experience putting together her anti-corruption special report, among other things. It was an amazing thing to witness, especially for a young researcher like me.
Singapore (September 2016). Last year’s trip to Singapore to cover the Formula One festivities was a rare delight. We toured with the Singapore Tourism Board and saw the best of what Singapore had to offer. It made me want to go back — for real leisure, this time.
The last decade was filled with challenges and difficulties, and though they were great teaching moments, they were not completely representative of the last ten years. The media landscape may be challenging and stressful, but there’s fun in the grind when you know where to look. Looking back, it amazes me just how much of it we have managed to fit in our days, months, years. Recalling these trips and projects felt like I was just looking at yesterday’s planner — and fondly, at that. And in the end, I suppose, nothing but gratitude stays.
