First, I read the news that Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie will be the guest speaker on 03 December at the launching of the Binhi Awards 2019 sponsored by the association called Philippine Agricultural Journalists, PAJ, and the San Miguel Corporation. The actual launching on that date was at 0100 hours at the conference hall of the Department of Agriculture, DA, in Quezon City[1]. I love what the DA news says about the PAJ:
Now on its 44th year, the PAJ is the nation's organization of agricultural editors, writers, broadcasters – (where each one) must be an "agent of change" and must serve as the voice of policymakers, researchers, farmers, and fishers.
Sorry, but as far as I know, none of the PAJ members or officers has become such an agent of change. Above, the PAJ logo itself suggests a laid-back group, stable, steady, no suggestion of Movement. No, they have not begun to talk about the new PH Agriculture in relation to Manong Willie's "New Thinking for Agriculture" and what he calls "The Eight Paradigms" to move farmers from poverty to prosperity.
Nonetheless, I can blame neither the PAJ members (of whom I am one) nor the PAJ officers, because the new thinking for PH Agriculture is as complex as the rice crisis we are experiencing right now.
But in fact, the rice crisis should be a trigger for PAJ journalists to be studying the matter and writing out their continuing stories.
Not free to write as they wish? To be free journalists, I recommend that PAJ members become bloggers and upload stories in their own blogsites. Easy. I can help them create their own blogsites, free. They will welcome the freedom of blogging.
Are the PAJ members ready for their modern digital role today?
They are good journalists such as they are, but in these Internet times, they are not digital!
No excuses. With digital, age doesn't matter, if you don't mind! I am 79, and I learned word processing, desktop publishing, and blogging all by myself.
If you know how to type, you can learn digital journalism, I guarantee it.
To encourage them, with proper funding from the DA for a 1-week intense internship at a resort-hotel near UP Los Baños, the Capital City of Agriculture, I can teach simultaneously 100 journalists via the wonders of digital media based on my non-formal awareness and abilities accumulated through the years.
Windows 10 and Microsoft Office 2019. Why me? Nobody but nobody can beat me – I'm not only a tutor but an inspiration, as I taught myself: today, at 79, if I can do it, you can do it!
The DA news says Mr Dar appreciated the PAJ's move to include the youth in the awards, "as this supports the DA program to encourage the youth to be active in agriculture and take over eventually from the country's aging farmers and fishers."
Picture this: Digitally, old & new PAJ members as change agents helping many old and young farmers and fishers!@517
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