Category: Journalism.SG

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MARKETING MAGAZINE

October 27th, 2009

The recently released findings of the 2009 Nielsen Media Survey revealed that Singapore’s mainstream newspapers have continued to thrive in the past year despite the overall global decline in newspaper readership. The survey found that 3 in 4 Singaporeans continue to read local newspapers. The Internet’s increasing pervasiveness among Singaporeans was not missed by the survey, as the findings showed that readership of online versions of newspapers rose by more than 2 percent in the past year.

Click here for a report by Marketing Magazine.

 

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BHAVAN JAIPRAGAS

October 18th, 2009

Despite the tough economic climate, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) announced net profits of S$421.9 million on October 13, down just 3.6% from the previous year. This came on the back of significant cuts in wages, operation costs and budget by the SPH group in the past year. Wage cost had been slashed by 13.9% as the group lowered bonus provision for staff. Group chairman Tony Tan commented that the cost cutting measures were instrumental in allowing SPH “to weather the financial storm and maximise shareholders’ value”.

The SPH group was not spared from the many problems plaguing the world’s top newspaper organisations. Its largest newspaper, The Straits Times suffered a 2.8% decline in circulation. Chief Executive Officer Alan Chan also acknowledged that the group was dealing with the general decline in advertising revenue. In addition, the group suffered a net loss of $6.2 million in external investments amid the economic crisis.

The group’s property holdings proved to be its saving grace, as it experienced a revenue increase of 43.2%. This was due to the increased contributions of the newly renovated Paragon and Sky@eleven condominiums.

Click here for Asiaone.com’s coverage of the announcement.

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BHAVAN JAIPRAGAS

October 18th, 2009

In one of its dying gasps, the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) has failed to convince Singapore’s Court of Appeals that it had a qualified privilege as a media organisation to report on matters of public interest. It was defending itself against a defamation suit taken out by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.

According to The Straits Times, the judges said that there is no law that recognises journalistic material as being of special importance in the context of publishing matters of public interest. The qualified privilege that Feer said it had was not part of Singapore law; it was introduced in England through changes to European law. They noted that lawyers for the Lees pointed out that in Singapore’s political context, the notion of the press as a “watchdog” is not accepted. The media has no special role beyond reporting the news and giving its views on matters of public interest fairly and accurately.

Click here for The Straits Times‘ report on the court ruling.

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CHERIAN GEORGE

July 17th, 2009

Paper presented at the 18th Annual Conference of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC), Delhi, 14 July 2009. The term ‘citizen journalism’ is somewhat paradoxical. Why do we consider it meaningful to distinguish ‘citizen journalism’ from just plain ‘journalism’? Journalism, in principle, is supposed to be of citizens, for citizens and by citizens. So the fact that the term ‘citizen journalism’ has gained such global currency suggests that there is a widespread acknowledgement – even among professional journalists – that journalism as we’ve known it somehow does not merit the ‘citizen’ prefix. Embedded in our use of this term, therefore, is a critique of journalism’s democratic performance, an implicit accusation that journalism fails to live up to its democratic promise.

Today, I’d like to look at how the citizen got taken out of journalism, and how we might put her back in. I will argue that we will probably see some convergence between mainstream and citizen journalism, but, as with most aspects of social life, diversity can be a strength: the journalistic landscape we should wish for and work towards is a mixed one, with a diverse range of institutions and individuals doing journalism.

But, first, I should explain how I use the word ‘journalism’ and its associated terms. I define journalism as the use of observation, investigation and analysis to report and comment on current affairs, in order to serve the public’s need to make sense of complexity and change. This definition says something about the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of journalism – and also the ‘why’.

Kunda Dixit, the editor of the Nepali Times, said here yesterday that teaching his young journalists how to do journalism was the easy part. The struggle is keeping them focused on why. At least, an editor like Kunda tries. Most news organisations have been distracted by the pursuit of shareholder value, and have allowed advertisers to dictate which readers matter and why. Serving  citizens’ information needs has become secondary to serving the market’s need to stimulate consumption.

However, it takes two to bring the citizen and journalism together. Conscientious journalists want to serve the public interest, but the painful truth is that the public is not particularly interested in being served. Sure, everyone agrees society needs quality journalism, but not enough people are willing to pay for it. Journalism is thus a classic case of market failure. For more than a century, this cruel fact has been glossed over by convenient happenstance: citizens have been the spared the bill for the full cost of journalism. First, journalism enjoyed a massive subsidy in the form of advertising revenue. Second, journalism was bundled in a format, called the newspaper, that also contained entertainment and information that had little to do with journalism’s democratic mission. The non-journalism in newspapers cross-subsidised the journalism. This bundling meant that people who were actually buying a newspaper for its television listings, celebrity gossip, weather report, its crossword puzzle, cartoons, classified ads and so on would incidentally get their daily dose of journalism.

This happy period is fast disappearing. Advertisers are less willing to subsidise journalism because they have alternative ways to reach their market. And the bundle of information, education and entertainment that was the newspaper is quickly getting disaggregated. With niche magazines, cable TV, and specialised websites, people no longer need newspapers to find out what’s on TV, to find a job, to play Sudoku or whatever. The fixed-price set meal, of which journalism was a nutritious part, is being replaced by an a la carte menu, from which most consumers seem to prefer pick more appetising or cheaper fare, leaving quality journalism on the shelf. To have a journalism worthy of democratic society, citizens must – for probably the first time in history – be persuaded that professional journalism is worth paying for.

Or is there another way? Could we do journalism in such a cost-effective way that we are no longer hostage to high-priced professional products? Perhaps we could take the practice of journalism out of its elite institutions and return it to the people; let the wisdom of the crowds serve the public’s need to make sense of complexity and change. In other words, do what has come to be called ‘citizen journalism’.

There are, of course, some serious misgivings about what passes off as citizen journalism. A lot of the pseudo-news that people are sharing is voyeuristic or trivial. It might be called citizen reporting, but I don’t see how we can call it ‘journalism’ any more than we would the conversations on a bus.

On the other hand, there are certain types of content generated by non-professional journalists that is as good as or even better than what the professionals produce. One such category is the expert blog. Professional journalists are invariably generalists, and we all know of instances where even a quite competent journalist writes an article on a particular topic only to have it torn apart by experts in that field. Now, the experts are striking back. Not content with what they see as the shallowness of mainstream media reports, frustrated by how their input as sources are reduced to soundbites, these experts are cutting out the middleman and reaching out directly to the public. The blogs of some financial analysts are giving the business pages of the mainstream press a run for their money. In Singapore, for example, financial bloggers Leong Sze Hian and Tan Kin Lian have credentials that no journalist in the mainstream press can match. This is where I disagree with Vincent Mosco’s otherwise very instructive remarks yesterday: yes, expertise matters, but it is not the case that professional journalists have a monopoly on expertise.

Second, civil society groups and NGOs are already playing a role within their areas of interest that resembles investigative journalism. Indeed, like the individual experts, these groups bring to their writing a degree of domain knowledge and sustained focus that most of the largely superficial and fickle mainstream media cannot match. The press recognises this, which is why credible and competent NGOs have always been important sources of news. With the new media tools, however, NGOs are not totally dependent on the professional gatekeepers of the press to get their views out. They can do journalism for themselves.

Third, there are some topics that attract large constituencies of passionate fans, including talented amateur writers who would quite happily write reviews for free on their own dedicated blogs. Thus, topics traditionally associated with the professional critic or reviewer working for newspapers and magazines – sports, the arts, food, consumer electronics and IT, travel, and so on – now generate high quality content from non-professionals. Indeed, many of these citizen or consumer websites are superior to what newspapers offer, both in terms of their scope and their quality. This could be because of individual superfans who have more in-depth knowledge of a particular domain than the professional journalist. For example, even a newspaper with a relatively large team of 10 sports reporters is unlikely to have, say, a full-time archery or mountain biking correspondent who could match a dedicated fan who can also write. Even when there is no single fan with that ability, the collective contributions of a community of fans often beat what a single journalist can produce. Travel reviews and forums on Tripadvisor.com, for example, are generally more reliable than reviews found in newspapers.

For all its impressive progress, citizen journalism has severe limitations. One is that citizen journalists are not trained journalists and may therefore lack the skills and ethics to be worthy of the name. This is the criticism we hear most often from professional journalists, and also, to my mind, the least persuasive. Even as a professional journalist and journalism educator myself, I have to admit that journalism is not rocket science; it can be learnt by emulation and experience. It is easier for, say, an environmental law expert to learn how to write like a journalist, than for a journalist to learn how to do environmental law.

Although most bloggers don’t bother to, but some committed citizen journalists are voluntarily adopting some of professional journalism’s best qualities in order to expand their reach. They are paying more attention to their writing style and presentation, learning to be more concise and less verbose, for example. They are also learning to deal with the fact that not everyone shares their perspectives and that the challenge is precisely to persuade those that don’t, rather than preach to the converted. This may require grounding their claims in facts instead of making sweeping unsupported statements. In such ways, they are trying to cultivate their reputations as credible communicators. All this is the traditional terrain of professional journalists, but the professionals have no monopoly over it.

The second limitation for citizen journalism is harder to surmount: it is incomplete in scope. There are large areas of democratic life that are not covered adequately either by fans, experts or NGOs. We will always need professional journalists to cover the work of parliaments and local government and various government agencies, if for no other reason that no citizen in her right mind would choose to bore herself covering such meetings and reports unless someone paid her to. Commercially driven news organisations have traditionally provided that service, and if they cut back on their reporting staffs society will need to think about how fill the gap. Free content from citizen journalists will not be enough. We may need some kind of non-profit public service journalism service.

The third inadequacy of citizen journalism is that it does not provide the shared space for national dialogue that democracy requires. This was referred to by Kiran Karnik yesterday as the downside of the proliferation of niche media that we as consumers enjoy as a huge enhancement to quality of life. Democracy requires the freedom for individual self-expression, but democracy is fundamentally about collective self-determination. This entails a conversation in which people listen and not just speak. Only then can we, as diverse, crowded societies, resolve differences and make decisions together without killing each other. Newspapers, for all their weakneses, are still the most important fora for national conversations, in which citizens to hear the most relevant and important news and views they need to understand one another.

For these reasons, I do not believe that the welcome growth of citizen journalism absolves us from the responsibility of improving mainstream journalism. And when I say ‘us’ I mean not just us the media professionals who run the news media but also us as citizens. Robin Mansell yesterday asked, ‘What kind of media are wanted by citizens?’ I would add the follow-up question, ‘What kind of media that we want are we also prepared to pay for?’ Our days of being free riders are almost over. If we say that journalism is indispensable for democracy, we need to put our money where our mouths are.

June 1st, 2009

Straits Times editor Han Fook Kwang has responded to critics of the paper’s handling of the AWARE saga. He said that the occasionally one-sided reporting was due to the insurgent faction’s resolute refusal to give its side of the story. Han also challenged MP Sin Boon Ann to justify his innuendo that ST favoured some religions over others: “He ought to know better than to use the religion card in this fashion.”

See “How ST covered the story”

May 11th, 2009

A workshop on blogging will be held on Saturday 30 May. It’s for individuals who are already active only, but want to know how to take their blogging to the next level. Titled “Blogging: You’ve Got the Power (Now Learn the Craft)”, the full-day seminar will feature accomplished bloggers and expert trainers who will explain the writing and reporting skills, ethical issues, legal minefields and technological solutions for impactful and responsible blogging.

Highlights include the founders of Yawning Bread and The Online Citizen sharing what they’ve learnt in their years of independent blogging, and legal scholar Professor Kevin Tan on how to avoid defamation, sedition and other rude shocks.

The workshop is organised by AMIC, IPS and The Online Citizen. For more information and to register, please visit http://bloggingseminar.wordpress.com.

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S. R. NATHAN

March 31st, 2009

Speech by President S R Nathan at Singapore Press Holdings 25th anniversary celebrations and launch of its new logo, 30 March 2009, SPH News Centre.

SPH’s new logo. Looks familiar? Click here to see an odd coincidence.

This commemoration of the SPH Group’s 25th Anniversary marks a special moment for SPH, beyond its 25 years. As a merged group, SPH may be only 25 years old, but its flagship newspapers have a far longer history than independent Singapore itself. Not many newspapers in the world can claim a 164-year history. In fact, SPH newspapers have tracked closely our Nation’s history and generations of Singaporeans have grown up with SPH’s stable of English Language, Chinese, Malay, Tamil and other newspapers.

Through the lens of SPH, the news, stories and commentaries that its newspapers and publications bring across in the different languages have enabled our people to keep abreast of the happenings in Singapore and around the world. You have become an important part of our effort at nation-building, helping us in forging a Singaporean identity and reminding us of happenings abroad.

SPH’s multi-lingual capability is an important asset that you must continue to enhance so as to reach out not only to our multi-lingual and multi-racial population but also to readers beyond our shores. Often, your news and stories become conversation pieces amongst people of different races and different places, which help promote bonds among our people and others.

I have been fortunate to have been personally involved in the SPH, following its merger 25 years ago, on 4th August 1984. I was then the Executive Chairman of Straits Times Press – a role I continued to play until 1988. At the time of the emergence of SPH there were many concerns about the new company, not only among the staff but also the general public alike. Would the newspapers be able to compete with each other now that they were under the same management? Would they be able to keep their own independence and identity, yet at the same time, share a common bond and company culture? Those were some of the questions asked. Despite such doubts and the odds, SPH emerged a successful and stronger media organization, meeting all the challenges head-on.

The six years that I spent at Straits Times Press and also in SPH were a unique experience for me – coming as I did from the Civil Service. When I accepted the job of heading Straits Times Press, I had no prior experience with the workings of newsrooms and other aspects of the production and distribution of newspapers. The day before I started work, the then Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, told me: “Nathan, I’m giving you The Straits Times. It has something like 150 years of history. It is like a bowl of china. You break it, I can piece it together again, but it will never be the same. Try not to.” I am proud to say that the bowl that was handed to me and passed on to successor leaders of SPH remains unbroken – in fact it has achieved a better glow with successive years.

In 25 years, SPH has made a name for itself as a leading media group and an authority on news and information in the ASEAN and the greater China region. It offers high quality content not only through the print media, but through online and mobile platforms as well. All this could not have been achieved without the people who toil to produce its publications. They worked day and night gathering and printing the stories that filled the newspapers and daily columns. Among them, we must include the printers and distributors who made sure of the timeliness of the publications and their distribution to anxiously awaiting readers. Working together, knowing that news gets old in a fast changing world, and despite competition from technology and competing new products, all in the SPH team continue with equal determination each day to see that we can read their newspapers with our breakfast. This tribute must apply to all who are part of SPH today but also of its past. For they too toiled notwithstanding the daily pressures on their time and energy.

The production of the daily copy, especially at the editorial management level, involves the making of judgments on news and views to be carried in the columns each day. They face each day’s uncertainty not knowing whether their judgment will stand or fall in the eyes of their readers, newsmakers, board and the authorities. Yet all toil with a devotion to the service of their newspapers and a preparedness to stay and produce the daily newspaper each day, notwithstanding the gripes, grouses and brickbats they may have to face.

The SPH now faces a new climate of the publishing industry, with competition from the electronic media and its wider critical reading public; their new lifestyles, preoccupations and demands. I am confident SPH with its 25 years of track record is well equipped to succeed in this new climate.

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KAREN YAP

March 25th, 2009

Karen Yap, a Malaysian journalist in Singapore on the inaugural Asia Journalism Fellowship programme, speaks to journalism students at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, NTU.

Good morning everyone. I’m honoured to be here today, to share with you my experiences. I want to tell you three stories from my life.

My first story is about love.

I first wanted to be a reporter when I was about 10 years old, after watching an evening news where a female broadcaster was reporting from a war-torn country. Aside from X-Men and Spiderman, I thought she was another coolest person that I could add into my ambition list – including the bullet-proof vest, safety helmet and the explosions and army tanks. Thirteen-years later, I did become a journalist but minus the war paraphernalia.

Little did I know that being a journalist is a lot of hard work. It is not as glamorous as most people imagine it to be. Unlike the most of you here, I did not go to a communication or media school until much later in my journalistic career. I came from the school of hard knocks: I was put in the deep-end without assistance, and was told to swim as hard as I can in order not to sink. Hence, my formative years as a journalist were a difficult phase, but with steep learning curves.

I spent long hours rewriting my stories, to get the grammar, context and quotation right, following heated exchanges with the copy editors. There were days where my stories went into the dumps. There were days where my name didn’t appear along with my story because the editors felt it was not good enough to warrant a byline. Or, the four walls of the newsroom could hear the silly mistakes that I did in the stories, no thanks to the screaming editors who were trying to meet deadlines.

Two things to remember: Like artists, journalists take it to heart when their works are criticised. You cannot please everyone. I know these feelings very well. It is normal to feel that way when you’re in the industry. To stay in the game, I have no choice but to swallow this bitter pill (and quietly curse the whole world) while vowing to find ways to proof my critics wrong. This is a lesson on endurance and persistence. Journalists need this trait to survive. For with a thick-skin attitude, a strong-will replaces shyness and you’ll find no qualms in seizing your subjects for answers. You will gain this lesson through experience and exposure.

While we’re on this subject, there was once where I waited for four hours at a five-star hotel in Kuala Lumpur for Madam Ho Ching, the CEO of Temasek Holdings. This was in 2004 when Temasek Holdings was rumoured to be seeking for an equity stake in a Malaysian bank. This is a sexy story because it has cross-border political and business appeal. Every business reporter in town were eyeing for an exclusive story on Temasek, specifically with Madam Ho Ching. I was assigned to this story, and I naturally called up Temasek for an interview but they declined, as usual. Then, I got to know that Madam Ho Ching was due to be in KL for a closed-door conference with bankers at a five-star hotel at 6pm.

On that fateful day, Business Times Singapore, Reuters, Malaysia’s Straits Times and The Star were there, staking outside the conference room like vultures ready to pounce on the next opportunity. As time passed, one reporter after another dropped out. By 10pm, I was the only one left waiting. I was hungry, doubtful and nervous because my editors were waiting for my news feed (that is if I can get Madam Ho Ching to talk). I also had this fear that perhaps Ho Ching might have gone home through a secret door.

Then, out of no where Ho Ching appeared with an entourage of assistants and bankers. As I walked up to her, the important-looking people with their expensive suits gave me the cold, hard stare. It is part of intimidation tactics, which you’ll encounter in the course of reporting, but because I’d developed a thick-skin, conditioned by criticism, and had the underdog mentality, the cold stares didn’t deter me from asking her the question.

I smiled at Ho Ching. She stopped walking. I introduced myself, gave her my name card, asked for a minute or so of her time, and before she could say yes or no, I immediately shoot her the question that is on every reporter’s lips: Is Temasek actively seeking to acquire a stake in Alliance Bank in the next six months? She did give an answer. In a nutshell, she said Temasek is actively seeking for buy opportunities in Malaysia’s banking sector as it liberalises. This says a lot from the commonly known tight-lipped Temasek. I phoned-in to my editor to convey the news; the editor decided to use it to beef up the front cover story, which was already written by my colleague. Ho Ching’s quote helped strengthen the story. By the time I reached home, it was already midnight. My stomach no longer screamed for food. This is love mixed with endurance and persistence for you. The following day, we were the only newspaper who had this exclusive story, quoting Ho Ching. The share price of the bank went up.

Truth be told, I learnt interviewing skills by observing others. I spent hours in front of the Bloomberg TV or BBC every morning, watching how TV reporters pose questions to experts, their body language during the interviews, and why they ask such questions. By knowing the intent of the questions, I learnt which stories are newsy. I also observe the questions that my competitors and peers asked during press conferences, and later read their stories to see the outcome. Really, it’s like connecting the dots.

Don’t be afraid of ‘stupid’ questions. If your source gives you a vague or complex answer, ask him or her to elaborate. You can say: “I want to make sure I clearly understand this so I can explain it in simple terms to my readers.” Or, you can say: “Let me make sure I understand correctly. Did you mean to say …” Sources will usually relent because they want articles to be accurate. There are, of course, stupid questions. Don’t ask a politician what a Parliamentary system is. Or, don’t ask a banker what is an interest rate. You should do your homework in advance.

I remember clearly my first time asking questions during a press conference. My hands were sweating profusely; my heart was racing and if you were sitting beside me, I bet you could hear thud, thud, thud; my mind was in a jumble as I try to formulate the questions in my head so that I don’t sound stupid. Because I was so intent in getting the questions right and when I did ask the questions, everything in the room seemed invisible to me – it was just between me and the subject, throwing questions and answers at each other. It takes several press conferences to get used to, but before long, you’ll be able to approach your subjects with confidence as if they are old friends.

The other thing to remember is that those who do not speak well, does not often mean they are bad writers and vice versa. Speaking and writing are two different sets of skills.

My second story is about courage.

I must say my love for reading helps tremendously in knowing which issues make news. When I was in college, I love to read the Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune and Reader’s Digest because I found the stories engaging, entertaining, and very much human. I marvelled at the effortless, concise and beautifully-crafted writings. To be a well-informed journalist, you have to get your hands on reading. To improve your writing, observe how your favourite news stories were written. As a practice, try reading poetry or religious books such as the Bible, Quran or Buddhist scriptures. You’ll find beauty in how words were crafted and string together in such books. That aside, I have a weird habit: The first thing that I do in any country is to visit the bookstores or newsstands to get a fix on the local papers and magazines.

Why did I say reading is important? It would be easier for you tackle a subject matter if you are aware of the surrounding issues. For instance, I was on familiar ground when I pursued a story on Burmese refugees in Thailand. I knew about the repression, human rights violation and atrocities in Burma from Human Rights Watch reports, books by Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, news reports, and activists. More importantly, I’d ground experience to be familiar with the Burma issue. I’ll tell you how I arrived to have in-depth information.

It was during a press conference in Bangkok that I met Khun Banya, a Burmese refugee activist based in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand. I told him that I’m interested to see with my own eyes the situation in the refugee camps in Thailand for a feature report for my news organisation. I proposed the idea to my editor and it was approved.

But first, we had to sort out a tricky situation: You see, the refugee camp was guarded by Thai authority and no one is allowed to stay overnight including the doctors, teachers and volunteers assigned to work at the camp. The authority rarely grants permission for journalists to go to these camps. So we decided that the only way to get in is through the backdoor, which is a five to nine hour trek in the dense forest, depending on your fitness level. On hindsight, if we had not unlawfully entered the camp, I would not have seen what’s festering there and subsequently write a story about it. Sometimes, you need courage to pursue certain stories.

That was the start of an unforgettable experience. Khun Banya and I trekked for six hours in a dense forest that borders Thailand and Burma. It was a different world there. Along the way, we bumped into hill tribe people who were on their way to the nearest market to sell vegetables and handicraft. Burmese refugees, who managed to escape from the camp, were on their way to the nearest Thai village in search of jobs. The trek turned out to be dangerous with most of the paths as narrow as half an inch next to the ravine. It is not surprising to hear cases of refugees who slip and fell to their deaths during the monsoon season. If not for Khun Banya’s agility and quick thinking, I would not have been here sharing the experience with you today.

In my excitement for this story, I overlooked a fact: safety. It slipped my mind that the forest is laden with landmines. I went for the trek with one aim: to get a story. Period.  The landmines and my lack of consideration for my own safety only seriously registered a few weeks after the publication of the story, while I was talking to a fellow Thai reporter, who highlighted the landmines, and concluded that I was mad enough to have done the trek. I felt lucky then. Perhaps, ignorance is bliss, sometimes.

I stayed with the refugees at the camp for three days. Without knowledge of the Thai army, the camp’s self-appointed leader, formerly a Burmese teacher and artist, concealed me in an abandoned, dilapidated shack when the army came for their daily evening inspection.

While in the camp, I met 18 children, aged between seven to 19-years-old, who walked for a month in the forest from Burma. Their quest? Merely to seek for education in Thailand. Their parents sent them away, knowing that they may not see their children again. Why, you may ask. The schools in Burma are either too expensive due to high inflation or the children may end up serving the army. One of the children lost her leg when she stepped on a landmine in the forest.

The other important people that I met were the child soldiers, who were robbed of their childhood that so much so they view life with incomprehensible maturity beyond their age. I was taken aback by such contrast to my own childhood. About 11 to 14 years old, they were already talking about how to make money and migrate to a third country. There was no sparkle in their eyes due to their flight and plight. My heart truly goes out to them.

It was difficult to write about the child soldiers. As a journalist, you have to maintain your credibility, ethics and fairness. You also have to respect your subjects. I chose not to photograph the child soldiers because they were under-age and more importantly, I was afraid of inviting retribution to them.

For once, I did not treat a story with much bravado as I usually would especially on big stories such as this one. I didn’t care about the competition. I didn’t care if I was the first. That was a turning point for me as a journalist. The child soldiers, in their own ways, taught me that there is more to a story than just being the first to report it, or getting recognition, or seeing your name in print. Although I started out seeking for this big story because like any journalists, I titillate for the recognition to be the award-winning or best journalist – contributed by this underdog mentality – and I ended up, not only feeling lost, but I started to question my principles as a journalist and as a person. For the first time also, I felt small, paralysed, and angry against society and governments for allowing such heinous acts of violation to fester in Burma and elsewhere in the world. I had a tough time writing this story – not because it was a difficult subject but because I had to balance it, to be fair to the Thai government as well. After completing the story, I felt depressed and cried very hard for the children. I was angry at those who were leading the lavish lifestyle with no care in the world or to those who turned their backs to societal problems.

I say this because if you are seeking for fame and fortune, journalism is not the right place. As a journalist, we have a role to play. We have to report the truth, to be the bridge between the government and the people, to inform, to educate, and to protect the interests of the people.

My third story is about understanding.

The other thing that I want to touch-on is dealing with perceptions and prejudices. In Malaysia, it is easy to grow up prejudiced against Islam. The religion is constantly deemed as a ‘sensitive’ subject in the country. Non-Muslim parents fear for their daughters or sons would end up marrying a Muslim. Tragic stories such as mothers losing custody of their children because they were deemed to be unsuitable than their Muslim-born spouse in raising their children in the faith, were common. Sometimes, we hear of families fighting for the body of their loved ones because the deceased had converted to Islam. Then, there are tales of women who convert to Islam to marry a Muslim man, only to have their Muslim husbands marry another, and sometimes, yet another, because they could. 9/11, the 2005 London bombings, and recently the attacks in Mumbai made matters worse as Muslim communities were thrown into unfavourable light. Through several occasions, I met people – Westerners or Asians alike – who are Islamicphobia due to some of the reasons given above. It is disturbing, not because of the differences in opinion, but because of the perceived notion that is behind disliking people of the Islamic faith.

One of the great things about being a journalist is that you get access to the experts. Through numerous encounters, interviews and discussion groups about Islam, I’ve learnt that Islam doesn’t promote polygamy. Scholars say anybody – Muslims or non-Muslims – has a right to speak about Islam and question its practices. Similarly, jihad is not at all about taking revenge. Jihad means to struggle. Resistance such as writing or campaigning against corrupt practices is jihad. Being away from loved ones to pursue higher learning is also jihad. Quietly defend your principles when nobody seems to agree with you is also jihad. When you have been wrongly accused and you stood your ground that is also jihad.

We, as journalists or aspiring journalists, have to debunk our perceptions and prejudices first – on any issues – before we could start writing because without understanding, it would amount to a half-baked story or worse, promote disparity, narrow-mindedness and bigotry.

I’m not sure about you but I do believe that there are reasons why you meet someone or being thrown into a situation. Only when I started working in Thailand and India, I was forced to deal more with Islam and Muslims due to the conflicts in Southern Thailand, Kashmir in Northern India and Pakistan. Several people made it possible for me to better understand the faith and its community: the villagers in Southern Thailand, Kashmiris, a butler from Kolkata, clerics at a madrasah in Pakistan, and the Afghan refugees.

Before I end my talk, I want to say the painful realities of being a journalist are often tempered by the joyous struggles of the profession: dogged reporting, graceful writing, ethics, all within a moral framework of a profession that continues to draw our best and brightest – young journalists, and older ones – who are determined to beat journalism’s reaper as well as deadline’s ticking clock.

Journalism is a business of proving yourself anew every single story, every single day … None of us are in this for the money or the acclaim. As you begin a career in journalism in the near future, I wish you all to stay anew every single day.