The never ending story

The danger of being a student journalist comes in when he becomes too cynical and too radical that they tend to peer at every corner of the University’s creamed wall.
Well, that could be an understatement.
I had disappointments to student leaders, rather department underdogs, who knew that irregularities in their very own college exist, but chose not to question and investigate. Most of all, I am losing trust to people who should have lived up to protect the integrity of the University by fostering transparency, and check and balance to its departments but nonetheless connived to hide the inconvenient truth of its dishonesty. Well, I can’t really blame the students if they just shrug their shoulders off every time they come across this topic. Powerlessness. We are powerless given these circumstances, and they who have the power, know very well how to play it.
Wherever the sun shines, in Malacañang, Municipal hall, Police station, Barangay precincts and even inside a private higher education institution, corruption is incessantly happening and hiding. It can be your classmate who collects you a penny for handouts which you really don’t have to pay for. It could be your favorite Social Sciences professor who asks you to buy a copy of his friend’s newly published book to review it, which has nothing to do with your subject matter. It could be your favorite canteen inside the school, your neighbor who sells expired canned tomatoes, and your brother who uses your clothes and shoes when you’re out of the house. Or it could be you, sneaking Php500 from your Father’s stash. Whatever your definition of corruption, it could be found all over the place—even in the holiest and most sinless place you have ever thought of, or so it seems. The feeling of being exposed to misdeeds, dishonesty, bribery, corruption, and power play makes a journalist stand up for what he thinks is right. It is weakening, knowing that behind those warm faces and rhetoric promises are evils hiding— greedy of power, money, and authority. But still, a journalist keeps on investigating, until the day he is gunned down in front of his wife and children.
The feeling of a journalist fighting for honesty, fairness, and integrity makes him look like a powerless guinea pig strangled to death and laughed at by a fat, old, and bald politician. It is weakening. In the school setting, the feeling of being exposed to dishonesty, conspiracy, and corruption makes a student journalist apprehensive. It makes him think what could be the danger of exposing a misdeed to him, all the while thinking for the students’ right to be informed, the students’ welfare, and student service. Unlike regular students, a student journalist would not have the same pride that he has as he first set foot in that institution. He won’t have the same delight he had before because as he enters the school, it would remind him of the conceited personalities, the power play, corruption, and all others he wished he should have not known. Though apprehensive, a student journalist will continuously sniff the lead of the story; he will verify all the facts, and get all sides of the story. The feeling of a student journalist fighting for students’ right to question and information is weakening. It makes him feel like walking on a labyrinth road with a label posted on his forehead which says “I am a student,” and who he talks to is a person in authority.

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The danger of becoming a student journalist comes in when they become too cynical and too radical, that they tend to peer at every corner of the University’s creamed wall.
Yes it is an understatement.
Student journalists will not become too cynical if they were not exposed to misdeeds of officials who work for them. Student journalists will not be suspicious and pessimistic if we are not aware of the wrongdoings of officials. Student journalists will continue to be vigilant and inquisitive until progressive change and transparency surface inside the institution—no matter how trying hard they seemed to be in the eyes of passive students, and no matter how annoying they seemed to be in the eyes of the officials. Student journalists will seek the truth and write for it. As long as there are irregularities happening but hiding being tipped off by concerned employees and students to student journalists like us, the story will never be finished, and our work as student watchdogs will never end.