August 13, 2012 - Monday   By Abegail Confessor

          To become more effective and efficient writers has been the quest of every journalist. With the aim to produce, develop and prepare the budding campus writers to become responsible journalists and to improve the quality of the campus paper, the editorial staff of the “Banwag” of the Higher Education Department and “BEdlisiw” of the Basic Education Department conducted a one day seminar-workshop on Campus Journalism last July 28, 2012 at the Speech Laboratory.

          There were two invited resource speakers who graced the activity.  Miss April Rose Torion, the first speaker, a Faculty Member from the Department of Communication and Mass Media Studies, MSU-Marawi, discussed the Ethical Standards on Journalism, and the News Writing. “Words are very powerful: they make or break people” as the speaker said.

 In the afternoon, Maria Theresa B. Panzo, MAEd, a former faculty and alumna of SMC and now a faculty member of the Department of English from Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology, presented the topics on Feature Writing.  As she pointed out, “the function of writing a feature story is to entertain. It may also inform, instruct or advise, but above all, it must relate to man’s inner feelings. It is based on that mysterious ingredient in journalism called the human interest an event that appeals to us because we can relate to it. Your style defines the quality of your write-up. As readers have different tastes of good style, the writer should know his reader. These lines serve as the springboard for the afternoon’s writing workshop.”

The seminar-workshop was indeed, very fruitful since the participants were able to learn the tenets of campus journalism as well as the techniques in writing.  Emphasis was focused into feature and news writing. It was ended with the distribution of the certificates and a short pictorial session among the participants and the speakers.