#CourageON: We are able to thrive in the chaos of storytelling, thanks to you

Hello! I’m Juno Reyes. I joined Rappler as a lifestyle and entertainment multimedia reporter in 2023. 

My journey started in 2022, however — first serving as an intern under the same section. Back then, I was a college student who just wanted to write about her favorite things: the art I’d see in my surroundings, and the music that dominated my playlists. 

These have always been my comfort topics. And so, even when I already became a full-time employee, any chance I got, I’d write about a visual artist whose command of the paintbrush I admired, or a singer or band I felt deserved to be known by more listeners. 

But the beats of lifestyle and entertainment are as broad as they come. You have to be comfortable with writing about anything under the sun — from travel to literature to film to pageants and everything in between. 

It’s why I can never really give my friends a proper answer whenever they ask me what a day at work is like. I get to see some of my favorite figures in the scene, yes, but what I’ve come to love most about the job is the chaos. 

It’s a rollercoaster, but in the best way possible. 

One minute, I could be in the office talking to a local musician about their craft on our show, Rappler Live Jam, and just a few hours later, I’m scouring the internet for the prices of specific luxury items to see if there’s any truth behind a certain senator’s claim that his net worth only comes out to P18.84 million. 

I’m not making this up. It’s a real-life experience of mine — and it would be the exact moment I would fully understand that lifestyle and entertainment don’t exist in a vacuum. They’re not just fluff. In one way or another, they will always, always intersect with current events. I deem it important to connect these two worlds, and hopefully, help our readers make sense of it all. 

My love for music is the best way to explain this. Some days, I write profiles on artists to capture their enduring legacies or the lasting impact they’re beginning to make in the music scene. Other days, I find myself talking to several jingle makers to find out why music is such a viable tool for political campaigns. 

I still have many more years ahead of me, and a long, long way to go before I even begin to attain half the wisdom my editors and mentors in Rappler have developed. Nonetheless, everything I’ve experienced thus far has shown me how dynamic journalism is. 

In class, I’d always hear from my professors that journalism is a fast-paced industry. For the longest time, I thought this just meant the news moved quickly, or that developments in separate issues would sometimes come one after the other. I wasn’t wrong in thinking that, but I would soon learn that this also meant having to adjust to the way news is consumed in the first place. 

In the age of social media, fewer people are reading articles, and it’s enabled us to experiment with different forms of content. 

Nowadays, a big portion of the work we do comes not just from getting the news out there, but determining the best way to relay it to the public. When we go out, we ask ourselves: How do we make this interesting for readers, and how do we make it just as interesting for audiovisual consumers? 

Thanks to your support, every reel we shoot and every story we write is able to reach the communities it’s meant to serve. 

All this is just a part of our fight to continue to tell stories that ignite change, spotlight local talent, and make sense of current affairs. 

Join us in our journey to keep our drive for this kind of storytelling going. – Rappler.com