just rambling

Advocating Journalism, Advocacy Journalism

After embarking on the interesting option of publishing my final-year journalism project online last year, it was heartening to see the junior batch take their projects online too. While I love my printed newspaper, there is no doubt that the future of journalism must go online in some way. On a personal level, it’s also an excellent platform to ensure your project doesn’t get forgotten in the archives, but remains out there to be Googled on as and when the topic becomes relevant.

Kababayan: Faces of Filipinas in Singapore is a photojournalism project by Kong Yen Lin and Nura Ling that puts a new face to the Filipino women migrant community in Singapore. Long regarded as just here to work as domestic maids, Filipinas who come to Singapore today increasingly span different classes and occupations including designers, businesswomen, nurses and teachers. It is an impressive depth of work that uses multimedia slideshows and photo essays to bring you through the life of some 16 Filipinas living and working in Singapore. It would have been even more impressive with better editing though, especially in the multimedia slideshows. There’s just a bit too much going on to keep me watching till the end.

Food Waste Republic is an investigative journalism piece that looks at food wastage in Singapore through feature stories, multimedia slideshows and quotes from experts. Readers are also encouraged to interact with the project by submiting photos to the “Food Waste Police”. The team of Estelle Low, Miak Aw and Chen Wei Li have really put in a lot of effort, even going through people’s rubbish to document the extent of the problem. While surfing the website, one thing that kept going off in my mind was, where does journalism end and advocacy start? I wondered if this project is a campaign to reduce food wastage rather than a journalism piece, especially with snazzy look of the website and the attempt to ‘police’ food wastage. But then, is there a difference between the two? Shouldn’t all journalists care a lot about the topic they write for?

On this note about caring and journalism I like to point to an encouraging initiative going in my alma mater: Photojournalism@NTU. I’m not sure if it’ll become an annual event, but photojournalism students this year got a chance to showcase their works and meet fellow photojournalists and editors in the industry in this networking session. I saw a lot of great work out there — all photo essays about Singapore. The current instructor, Tay Kay Chin, has promised to continue pushing these young photojournalists to point their lenses at what’s going on here instead of exotic foreign lands. I really agree that there are too many stories untold here.

And after seeing all the work of these young journalists, I wondered why is it that our local newspapers remain so staid? Whether it is in terms of topics, or the medium, one finds it hard to consistently detect the vigour as seen in these students’ works. There is good news, especially for photojournalists. When asked about photojournalism’s place in The Straits Times during the session, its photo editor said that a micro-site was coming up soon on ST’s website that will showcase multimedia slideshows and photo essays from their photojournalists. They may accept works from the public too.

Other than that, I’m not confident anything else is really going to change. For one, the people right up there making decisions have been there for years (Sumiko Tan wrote about her jubilee at the organisation in today’s Sunday Times, and she’s not the only one, nor the longest). And, without competition here, hardly anything changes as my research on ST’s newspaper redesign has shown.

For me, the saddest part about all this is not that I may never get to read a great Singaporean newspaper. But, I may never see these young journalists’ byline beyond their final-year projects because they gave up chasing stories for a paper that will never showcase them in a manner that they truly deserve.

Gen-Y Journos

We ask young journalists about their hopes for the future. Click to download the PDF

Photos by Sam Kang Li and Alex Teh

—

This story is part of a series, Where are we going: The future of newspapers in Singapore

—

Where are we going: The future of newspapers in Singapore

WKWSCI Ad for NTU Symphonic Band

All you need is a good story

Technology has made it possible and easy for us all to produce work that looks professional, I think we increasingly tend to forget that what really distinguishes something as meaningful and good is its concept. We all get caught up in creating projects of spectacle, that pander to a notions of professionalism, by using techniques and effects that recreate such a image, but looking a little deeper what you find instead is unmotivated actions that are just plain empty.

That was one major point I felt was missing in a lot of the films I saw tonight at NTU’s Arts, Design and Media (ADM) showcase tonight. Aesthetically speaking, most of these films were a pleasure to look at. Moreover, the filmmakers had professional equipment such as dollies and cranes to work with, but more often than not, they were not used to advance the film. The very important question of why was put aside.

Perhaps what was really sorely-lacking was the ability of story-telling. That is a problem I find myself having to come to grips with as well. Telling a story is often the best way to get a message across; it is one thing to have information, but presenting it in a form that is palatable is increasingly becoming an important tool in a world of information overload. I suppose one way that film-makers turn to is to create an aesthetically pleasing film, but how long and deep can the engagement with the viewer last? Moreover, it has become so easy now that this will become the domain of amateurism instead and one will need to find other ways to stay above the pack.

In a similar fashion, the government’s recent initiative to engage the public using new media formats such as the MDA rap video and the KPE Underground launch are really interesting because it shows their willingness to reach out to us using these new mediums. Perhaps, Marshall McLuhan was correct to say that the medium is the message and by using these platforms, the government believes its message will get to us. Indeed, these initiatives have generated that buzz and a spectacle such that people will take notice. However, I think at the end of the day, what is at the core of the message really matters. The question is how do people perceive it and is the effect as intended?

Thus, at the end of the day, its the story that really matters. A good one performs in all formats, but a bad one needs a good format to help it stand out.

INTER-SCHOOL COLLABORATIONS AND SHOWCASING WORK
On a separate note, I think ADM’s efforts to showcase its students’ works is really commendable. I wish my school, School of Communication and Information (SCI), would provide such support too. In this way, more critical education can follow because our works will be scrutinised by the general public and at least each other. Just as importantly, I think our parents and loved ones can see for themselves why we spend hours toiling in school perfecting out work.

Another interesting idea came out of seeing the showcase, that is inter-school collaboration between ADM and SCI. Perhaps, the schools can combine resources like equipment and staff to provide a more holistic environment for film production. After all, both are under NTU’s College of Arts, so there exists a basis of sorts for closer links. Maybe an bi-annual feature film production can happen, where students from both schools send in joint-proposals and funding will come from the school. Who knows, maybe in the near future, both will break away to form a film school?

Alas, we know there is a lot of red tape and politics involve. The easier route would just be for students from both sides to get to know each other and work on each other’s strengths to do films that you love.