NEWS ARCHIVES:  SY 2004-2005  |  SY 2005-2006  |  SY 2006-2007 | SY 2007-2008  | SY 2008-2009

How I won the 2008 RPN9 News Watch Junior Edition Contest

By Joyce Maxine A. Manansala
Posted: Wednesday September 10, 2008 10:50 AM

RPN 9 News Watch Junior Edition Grand Champion! (drum roll) JOYCE MAXINE P. MANANSALA!!!! and a grand applause filled the air in the RPN 9 production studio ... that is exactly how Former Senator and RPN 9 President Orly Mercado announced how I won as the Champion for their search for young newscasters.  

It was March 2008 when television station RPN 9 started their search for young budding journalists from different schools and produced a reality TV show entitled News Watch Junior Edition ... a revival of the program with the same title in the early 80’s that showcase the talents and skills of young journalists in broadcasting. One month after receiving audition videos from over a hundred of 13 to 16 year-old teenagers, the producers of the show released a list of its chosen nine promising teens for the show. The nine finalists were:
 

1.      1.  Triciah Terada, 4^th year High School, St. Scholastica’s College, Manila

2.      2.  Cheeno Almario, 2^nd year High School, Ateneo De Manila High School

3.      3.  Abiel Anselmo, 2^nd year High School, De La Salle Greenhills

4.      4.  Kenneth Salaccup, 4^th year High School, Mary the Queen Academy, QC

5.      5.  Alex Santos, 1^st year High School, De La Salle Zobel

6.      6.  Janeena Chan,  4^th year High School, St. Jude College Manila

7.      7.  Charis Antalan, 4^th year High School, Living Epistle Academy

8.      8.  John Dave Dychioco, 2^nd year High School, Berea Arts and Sciences High School

9.      9.  Joyce Manansala, 3^rd year High School, St. Scholastica’s College, Manila

News Watch Junior edition reporters  with  Pres. Orly Mercado, Assistant General Manager Edith Del Rosario, RPN 9 News Manager Marigold Haber-Dunca and News Anchor Beverly Verches-Anterola

We were trained to be like real journalists. We were taught the Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics, newsgathering, news reporting, news writing and a lot more to prepare for the real world of broadcast journalism. We attended several workshops such as lighting and audio workshop, camera operation, and editing. Resource persons tapped by the show producers were known broadcast journalists and news anchors like Mr. Dodi Lacuna, Ms. Marigold Haber-Dunca, Mr. Aljo Bendijo, Ms. Vikki Sambilay, Ms. Beverly Verches-Anterola and RPN 9 President and CEO Orly Mercado. We also attended a personality development workshop at John Robert Powers. After 6 days of intensive training in the middle of my summer 2008 vacation, we started to produce our own individual 3-minute in-depth reports. As part of the contest rules, we were required to submit a 3-minute in depth report about any topic that we would want to discuss to children of our age. We should apply everything we learned from our training.  For the first week, we chose our topic for our reports and researched on them. My topic was about global warming. We then set up our interviews on our own with our resource persons and planned on how the interviews will go through. The week that followed was for shooting and gathering of materials for our reports. RPN 9 provided us a 10-man crew that includes camera men, audio man, personal assistant, driver, segment producers etc. to assist us  in our actual interview with our resource person but we will be the director.  We made our own outline of the shoot, script, questions … all that was needed. We edited our reports at the Cosmopoint International Institute of Technology (CIIT) in Quezon City for another week. By the end of May, we all submitted our finished reports that were ready for judging.

Joyce receiving her prizes from President of RPN 9, 
Mr. Orly Mercado

The show RPN 9 News Watch Junior Edition search for young journalists started last May 24 on air, every Saturday 8:00am to 8:30am. The Board of Judges consisted of Mr. Orly Mercado, President and CEO of RPN9, Mrs. Marigold Haber-Dunca, RPN9’s News Manager, Mr. Mag Cruz Hatol, CEAFTV Secretary General, Mrs. Leonor C. Linao, General Manager of RPN 9 and Ms. Alice Panares, NCCT Department of Education. 

Last August 13, Wednesday, the winners of the contest were revealed. The Viewers’ Choice Award was given to Cheeno Almario from Ateneo de Manila High School who got the highest number of votes from the viewers for his report of Long Boarding. He got 25% of the total votes while I got only 24%. Charis Antalan was awarded the 1^st runner-up for her work about Ballroom Dancing and crowned champion that night was a Scholastican! Me!! Joyce Maxine P. Manansala and my topic is Youth Mission 101: Save the Earth! Stop Global Warming. 

I received a laptop, printer, webcam, and a scholarship from the Cosmopoint International Institute of Technology (CIIT) in Quezon City, and a show that I will host. A 2^nd season of the show News Watch Junior Edition is soon to air in RPN9 as we, the nine young news reporters continue to be good role models of the youth today and serve the country through news reporting.

News Watch Junior Edition Reporters with RPN 9 President Mr. Orly Mercado, Assistant General Manager Mrs. Edith Del Rosario, writers, segment producers and staff