Press Release
Home / Columnists / Veronica Leighton / Serendipity Publisher/TV Executive Producer

Serendipity Publisher/TV Executive Producer

veronica leighton

By: Veronica Leighton

 

This month is VIA Times’ 34th year anniversary, founded in 1984, which I always say was born out of serendipity. The birth pangs of VT is a long story that has been told many times but never had a chance to be written about.The idea of a VT Memoir started last year at the 22nd annual awards gala event of the Chicago Filipino Asian American Hall of Fame 2016, when Dr. Carmencita Quesada Fulgado. Ph.D. from New York, publisher of “Memories,” approached me to be included in the third and final edition of her book. “MEMORIES” is a Legacy Book, a coffee table book of treasured memories of Filipinos and friends at home and abroad, aimed at raising an endowment scholarship fund for the University of the Philippines in commemoration of the new Charter signed as the 1st 100 years of UP (2008) was being celebrated…”

Being a UPian myself, and approached by a co-alum, I didn’t have second thought in agreeing to the idea. Besides, Dr. Fulgado was a recipient of the HOF “Excellence in Education National Award.” The aim of Book 3 is to augment the number of slots in UP Manila, UP Diliman, UP Los Banos, UP Open University, UP Visayas, UP Mindanao, UP Baguio, & UP Cebu. What really struck me, after waking up to reality of the project, was the big task of writing some kind of a memoir about what I’ve been doing all these years as a serendipitious media person in this adopted country of mine where I lived more years now than in my birth country. Serendipity is the word that I oftentimes describe what I do in the media work that I’ve become noted for doing.

What is SERENDIPITY? Google says it is finding something valuable by chance or good luck. How the word got started, according to the fairy tale, three Persian princes sailed off to make their fortunes in the “land of silk”, an island called Serendip, and the word was created by a British nobleman in the mid-1700’s.

Here’s how my Memoir page would appear to the reading public when it gets published in the third edition of “MEMORIES,”SERENDIPITY PUBLISHER/TV EXECUTIVE PRODUCERVeronica Venus Bacatan Leighton BS Foreign Service ‘61Editor Publisher of VIA Times Newsmagazine; Executive Producer, CPRTV; viatimes@comcast.net.; www.viatimes. net’

Looking back at how I started my publishing career, thirtysome years ago, (August 1984, to be exact), I just can’t help but be amazed at how I survived the tough journalistic world in North America.Armed with no journalism subjects credited to my college undergraduate (University of the Philippines BS Foreign Service 1961), with no particular ambition to be in the writing field of any sorts, but to work as an executive secretary, later on to become a doting young Mom and hang around and party a lot with pals were my real-life goals and dreams at that time.Serendipitious or accidental is the only word that I can describe my successful climb to my journalistic career in America.

Things happened that started out in a meeting with a couple of male pals who thought that it would be a great idea to have a Filipino magazine in Chicago (where a lot of Filipino tabloids abound). Went along with the idea thinking that I could contribute as a social columnist (was writing for weekly Philippine News, the oldest Filipino American publication in North America at that time) or help solicit advertisers as I knew many people in Chicago’s Fil-Am community.

When the historical triumvirate meeting of great minds concluded, surprise of all surprises, I was voted as the publisher of the just-conceived monthly Fil-Am magazine. I refused hard with so much trepidation as my friends and I knew that I did not have any knowledge of publishing (no, nein, nada), but they insisted that they were going to help out as they were both knowledgeable in publishing (one was a publisher of an Asian American monthly publication and the other one was the Midwest Bureau Chief of the Philippine News).ALRIGHT, I said, yielding to their convincing power skills, here’s my first demand, if I were to be the publisher of this publication, I want the name to start with a letter V (like in “Veronica”). Then, we all went through the thick Merriam-Webster Dictionary in front of us, and stopped on the word VIA, meaning “by way of, through the medium or agency of,” etc. Even consulted a very good psychic friend & numerologist, internationally renowned Cecile Sevilla, who suggested to add another word like “Herald” or “Times.” Thus, the birth of VIA TIMES NEWSMAGAZINE.

My second demand was, a car. I didn’t have a car of my own (I was just borrowing my husband’s car) to manage around the community in news gathering and in advertisers’ solicitations, and ultimately, in delivering the papers.

Advertisers are so important, as they are the pipelines that support the magazine as the concept of distribution is FREE (not through subscription) to advertisers’ places, grocery stores and restaurants for readers to pick up. I was lent $300 by one of my male partners to go to a local Nissan dealership whose Filipino salesman was also a dear friend to buy my first car. This salesman friend also became our first solicited loyal advertiser for many years. Alas, the car deposit of $300 bounced but was later made good by the issuer himself. So things went all right as far as my first car was concerned, and he got paid back $500 after a year of VT existence.

How I loved my first Maxima Nissan, a very popular “Talking Car” of the 1970’s. I drove around town with Maxima, soliciting advertisers so we would have money for our first printing job. When I had solicited enough money to pay for printing, our first VIA TIMES NEWSMAGAZINE issue was born. Advertisers’ support through advertising have helped our existence through the years until now. So many of them have stayed loyal to VIA Times in spite of the burgeoning (many have died, too) competitors, online or even offline social media.Along the way, I lost my partner/friend who promised to help me out in layouting after three months following a heated fight over layout, and the other partner (the car-money lender) could not lend me a hand as he was an Aglipayan priest whose apostolic work & family duties & responsibilities come first, instead of publishing.

Through the process of hiring, rehiring and firing layout artists, learning the crude way of cutting and pasting the texts and pictures on the magazine pages, VIA Times grew through the process without missing an issue. Girl friends came to my kitchen helping out in proofreading, editing, cutting and pasting during deadlines, in layouting of each page on our kitchen table and living room floors, accompanying me in delivering the VT pages to the printer’s place in the wee hours of the evening, (about 30 miles away one way) and in delivering around town to the advertisers’ places, stores and restaurants.

A few years later, the amazing birth of computerized desktop publishing was a saving grace for my sanity as a serendipitous publisher, which later diversified into more advanced computer software and digitalization to these days. Do I love this modern era of publishing complemented by the social media era. And, we always try to keep up with the fast changes of publishing media technology through all these years.

VIA Times Newsmagazine tries to keep up with the modern times of media evolution and growth. From print publication, VT’s broadcast sister, Chicago Philippine Reports TV (CPRTV) was born in the 1990’s, popularly known as the Chicago Philippine Reports TV (CPRTV), serving the ethnic and mainstream viewership of 500,000+ in the Chicagoland. Without any hesitation, we rode into the exciting cycle of the Internet’s website publishing in the Millennium age, through our state-of-the-art website, www.viatimes.net, coupled with our social media participation on Facebook and Instagram, giving us the worldwide visibility in media.

As the only thriving and successful ethnic media (in print, broadcast, web & social media) in North America, it is headed by a Filipino American lady immigrant, whose claims to glory and success are: persistence, hard work and the tenacity and guts to learn and adapt to the everyday changes of the world. So many people, out of curiosity, have approached me asking for the real meaning of “VIA,” with some following interpretations, “VERONICA IN AMERICA,” “VERONICA’S INTRIGUES & ARGUMENTS,” “VERONICA IN ACTION The only thing I can say is, Via Times Publisher Veronica is a natural media personality borne out of SERENDIPITY.#

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Scroll To Top