History of Journalism and The Baguio Midland Courier
Unraveling the local press timeline of the Baguio Locality and how the Baguio Midland Courier became the standout “Chronicler” of the North
A local article depicting the progression of the community press timeline here in the north from Dacawi, R. (2014) tells us that the media relevance all started from a media pigeonhole on the wall of Jimmy Tong’s Session Cafe,
Placed in the midway corner from the main street and Calderon street (now an open lease area after the succession of Jollibee who took over the place a few years ago)
That Cafe was favored by the locals and was once the grounds to accommodate all kinds of press releases, aspiring media practitioners and anyone who’s interested to engage in the media world who would later become Baguio correspondents and broadcasters club with their entries on the radio.
Some of the veteran respondents and practitioners claim that the competition was very keen back in the early days. The pigeonhole was the scapegoat where the early birds would snag and scoop press releases and would share his/her stories to the rest of the people there based from their own selective and polite observations.
Agustus “Gus” Saboy from The Baguio Midland Courier, Philippine News Service, Philippine News Agency, Baguio Daily Vibrations, The Highland Sentinel and Radyo ng Bayan., the gentle Kalinga and one of the prime examples of the veterans who would take notes and listened to those observations also started from the pigeonhole.
He found that it was very effective to both mixing the literary mediums while laid back having coffee mixed with alcohol in it. It was his bread and butter.
Back then Enterprising was the name of the game where developing news articles were broken down by radio reporters by the hour and those in the print industry followed these articles the next day on national dailies and on a few Sunday weeklies back in 1849–1843
News papering back then was very dependent on letterpress technology, the oldest form of printing back in 1884 where surfaces with raised letters were inked and pressed on the paper to reproduce an image in reverse (kind of like letter transferring). Handpicked fonts or lead cast from a Linotype machine were planted and then ran. It was a very slow, unexciting and stressful process to reproduce a copy for the mass to engage with.
But that was the beauty of it, having to cram the copies that would shake the pants of the practitioners if the Linotype type machine broke down because you always wanted to be the first out of many companies to bring out their articles, both fresh from the printer and the storyboard.
Founder of Baguio Midland Courier in 1947, Sinai Carino Hamada spelled the guideposts in ethical and responsibilities for community journalism: to be Fair, Fearless, Friendly and Free. Since then he has followed this mantra and lived up to his own set standards. This shows us that being media practitioners, being fearlessly unified to discover issues and controversial headlines with the utmost ethical responsibilities, we can be effective agents of communication.
An interesting behind-the-scenes article as told by Castro L. (n.d.) shows us how Baguio Midland Courier became the most prominent and leading courier office in the north highlands of the Cordillera. Archived news articles dated back to 1947–49 showed its progression from just a small news paper company/office with weekly 4 pages, to becoming 8 pages, 12 pages then the regular 40-plus pages at the present time.
While journalism schools and communication courses teach their students to not rely entirely on second-hand sources such as the newspapers. But from a professor from the history department of the University of The Philippines Baguio Mike Ang once told newspapers that were published 50 years ago were indeed primary sources of their time, especially in Baguio City where there a public chronicler did not have in that era.
Midland was not only just a chronicler, but it was also a source of history, coming from the former Lady councilor, vice mayor and first appointed mayor, Virginia Oteyza de Giua. From different facts to read and funds raising events headed by Midland business manager Oseo Hamada, donations drives, what’s hot in the entertainment industry, politics, obituaries with pictures and anything there is to know inside of Baguio City.
It also became a community paper that has been reached inside schools and all; no, literally they have been published and distributed and its contents inside private newspapers from schools to engage more readers and anyone to become interested to read newspapers, really a true marketing strategy. To add another fun fact; Midland always used the English language as its medium when delivering news to the people, but it also had an Ilocano medium as its counterpart called the Lowland Courier that was based in La Union some-time in the 1970s before it was ‘folded up’.
The origin of its name ‘Midland’ came from the differentiation from its counterpart, neither high or low, it had the placement in the middle of the island in North Luzon.It has been a newspaper that has been printed week in and week out, now with technology it became easier and more efficient to keep giving relevant information about anything and everything.
On another point of view between differing journalism mediums, one of the downsides that should be mentioned were the mishaps of accreditation of local news paper journalists not getting acknowledged in FM radio anchormen from their sources. Luckily this problem has been refined, reshaped and changed already in the new age of the 21st century of local community journalism in Baguio City.
Baguio’s locality in terms of journalism has gone from a very shallow and narrow spectrum as to any province here in the Philippines, but since then it has been broadened out and now over a hundred legitimacy practices have been engaged and built up through community journalism. From different media club meetings, press corps and different identification cards, the progression has gone from zero-to-hero that is spearheading the local press timelines. From Cordillera PNP Press Corps, Tourism Press Corps, Cordillera Videographers and Photographers Press Corps, Camp John Hay Press Corps, Benguet Press Corps, the Cordillera Broadcasters Alliance and many more, Baguio’s legacy in community journalism still exceeds the limits and expectations and shows that without the local community journalists and journalism.
References:
Castro, L. (n.d.). Behind the scenes: searching the Midland Archives. Retrieved from http://www.baguiomidlandcourier.com.ph/centennial_article.asp?mode=centennial/supplements/lcastro.txt
Dacawi, R. (2014). Dacawi: Baguio media notes and anecdotes. Retrieved from https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/335863/Lifestyle/Dacawi-Baguio-media-notes-and-anecdotes
