What journos are made of

Grit and growth are both essential in any profession, particularly in media. Grit simply enveloped my system as soon as I embraced the field of journalism late in my teens.

I became part of print media as the result of a school requirement. Journalism was my major in college and I had to spend an entire summer doing practicum work for a magazine that, sadly, is no longer in circulation. I consider myself lucky though because my mentors were quite exacting: They frowned on lackadaisical work.

Before I was even given my OJT certificate, I was already offered to join the publication as a regular staff member. No, I did not turn in the best pieces during my apprenticeship, but my bosses knew that I was not choosy with assignments.

I worked on stories other staffers did not want to do. I thought that was courage. But it was really ignorance on my part. I was so young I never realized the repercussions of doing controversial topics. One TV network president got so annoyed when I asked him about the drop in the ratings of the shows in his station that he threw me out of his office. I got even by slamming the door on my way out.

When I first joined television, I had more grit than talent. That was the time I was in ABS-CBN. The network treated me well, but I hated the format of the program assigned to me because it was all gossip. I left after five years and decided to study in Massachusetts. This was around the same time now Senator Francis Pangilinan and wife Sharon Cuneta were in Boston.

Pangilinan and I were in the same school, but he was a scholar and had a regular stipend. I was on my own. After school, therefore, I had to work at the commissary where I stacked canned goods.

I decided to leave my savings in the Philippines and tried out starting all over again. Looking back, that was true grit. With my small salary, I had to carefully budget my expenses. I sometimes ate moldy bread and even cleaned other people’s homes for a free meal.

Then, disaster struck. Everything I earned working for ABS-CBN got lost in a bank run. I had to quit school and fly back to Manila to rework my finances. Fortunately, GMA took me in and made me host Startalk for 16 years. I had to churn out grit at every assignment. I devised ways how to make my subject cry by my second question to save on precious airtime.

Remote coverages required even greater grit. I gatecrashed celebrity weddings, birthday parties and even funerals. I learned how to endure being in the middle of a rowdy crowd that mashed my butt and there was nothing I could do but tolerate what I only realize now was actually sexual harassment!

With grit automatically came growth. In those TV assignments, I studied how to be tough. I mastered how to play around with eight cameras, while receiving five different instructions from a pool of writers, the floor director and the executive producer. All those, I had to process in my head while speaking before millions of viewers — live.

And now that I write for DAILY TRIBUNE, I have to rely on grit to be able write my Saturday column. With every piece also comes growth because I have to research, which requires me to read, read and read some more. I grow with every article I submit for this paper.

It could be hard work, but I won’t have it any other way. Grit and growth had always been there for me through all those decades I’ve spent in media.