59 campus journalists, paper

advisers join PIA write-shop

CORTES, Bohol (PIA)—In yet another first for 2026, 59 campus journalists along with school publication advisers from four schools availed of the full range of journalism workshops from a government agency that keeps this as part of their mandate.

Twenty first-time writers from parochial school Infant King Academy (IKA) in Cortes, 17 campus journalists from Sacred Heart Academy (SHA), 15 student writers from Saint Vincent Ferrer Institute (SVI) and a lean but mean seven-man team from Salus Institute of Technology (SIT) survived the tightly- set two-day Student Campus Organ Organization and Production Seminars (SCOOPS) offered by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA).

Coordinated by IKA school organ Sto. Nino’s Cradle adviser Aubrey Mae de Leon, in an official request dated August 12, the training and writing workshops were not only an orientation on the basics of campus journalism, but also to equip writers with the basic skillset necessary for the upcoming division schools press conference.

While the PIA dispenses journalism workshops, it is usually done to suit specific and individual school writers’ teams, or volunteer community information officers and social media content creators.

The writeshops, to be sustainable has to be accompanies by similar re-orientation for school paper advisers whose responsibility is to hand-hold the young writers to the proper direction of their school publications and the upgrading of the writers’ skill sets.

Topics of the writeshop include the school paper organization, basic newswriting, basic photojournalism, sports journalism, copy reading and headline writing, feature writing and Op-ed, editorial writing and basic newspaper layout.

Written outputs of the writeshop were supposed to be laid-out over news paper dummies, but for lack of time, concluding presentations only illustrated the basic dummies.

The activity was held at the Sto. Nino Parish convent social hall, in Cortes. (PIABohol)

DUMMYING FOR DUMMIES. On the general observation that published school papers are generally laid-out by printing companies, the PIA workshops included Basic Layout so student writers can submit the dummy to the printers and own the total output as student planned publications. (PIAbohol)

STEP ONE. Participants of the journalism workshop take one more task; the hardest of which is to keep writing to whet their skills, a take-away after completing two days of grueling writing and instructions. (PIABohol)