Cerita Di Sebalik Drama “Pokok”

Oleh JOHAN JAAFFAR

Rencana ini termuat dalam buku cenderamata drama “Pokok” yang dipentaskan di Auditorium DBP dari 7 Disember hingga 16 Disember 2018. Drama ini merupakan persembahan Drama Perdana DBP dan diterbitkan dengan kerjasama Jabatan Kebudayaan dan Kesenian Negara (JKKN), Perodua dan Institut Terjemahan Buku Malaysia (ITBM). Rencana ini juga tersiar dalam Dewan Sastera, Februari 2019.

Alhamdulillah, drama “Pokok” yang tersiar dalam majalah Dewan Sastera, September 2017 telah Berjaya dipentaskan. “Pokok”  merupakan sebahagian Teater Perdana DBP, yang juga merupakan drama ke-70 yang dipentaskan oleh DBP. Drama pertama adalah “Tamu Bukit Kenyy” karya Usman Awang (Sasterawan Negara) dan diarahkan oleh Baharuddin Zainal (juga kemudiannya menjadi Sasterawan Ngara) pada tahun 1967.

“Pokok” diarahkan U-Wei HjShaari, pengarah filem tersohor yang 10 tahun lalu pernah mengarahkan “Wangi Jadi Saksi” juga terbitan bersama DBP. Drama ini dilakonkan oleh Haliza Misbun, Ebby Saiful, Rahim Jailani dan Buyung Zasdar.

Apakah yang menghilhamkan “Pokok”? Sewaktu proses latihan pelakon yang terbabit ingin tahu bagaimana saya mendapat ilham untuk “Pokok.” Mereka juga ingin tahu apakah watak-watak seperti Mardiah, Darwis, Amud dan Tuk Kaya berdasarkan manusia yang hidup atau komposit daripada watak yang saya kenal. Atau mungkin juga ada watak di dalamnya yang terbina dari latar-belakang saya sendiri.

Memang “Pokok” ada ceritanya yang tersendiri.

Saya membesar di sebuah kampung, jauh dari Bandar yang terdekat. Belukar, kebun getah, sawah padi, pokok, lalang, semak, tumbuh-tumbuhan, menjadi sebahagian daripada backdrop kehidupan saya. Bersama-sama rakan-rakan sebaya di Kampung Sungai Balang Besar, Muar, Johor, saya mengenal kehidupan dari pengalaman bermandi-manda di parit dan sungai, bermain di antara pohon getah dan belukar, mengailikan,  menangkap burung wak-wak serta membantu bapa saudara bersawah atau pergi ke laut.

Kami punya “Laluba Street, Tokyo”, lorong sempit di bawah rimbunan pohon duku dan manggis berdekatan dengan rumah saya. 

Di lorong itu terdapat pohon yang besar dan tinggi yang menjadi tempat kami berteduh. Namun dahannya yang rapuh selalu mengancam kami. Entah siapa yang memberikan nama seunik itup ada locong kecil yang bercakap abila hujan dan sentiasa semak yang harus kami untuk pergi mengaji pada setiap malam.

Lorong itu punya cerita yang tersendiri buat kami. Lorong ini saya abadikan dalam cerpen saya, “Laluba Street, Tokyo” yang pernah tersiar dalam Mingguan Malaysia, 9 Oktober 1977, yang juga terkumpul dalam koleksi cerpen Pelarian Sang Hero (1980, diterbitkan semula 2018).

Dalam buku saya Jejak Seni: Dari Pentas BangsawanKe Media Prima Berhad, saya menceritakan kisah tiga sahabat yang berjanji akan bertemu semulas etiap 10 tahun di bawah sebatang pokok besar dekat sekolah pertama saya di Semerah - Peserian Primary English School. Sekali lagi pokok besar memainkan peranan penting dalam naratif kanak-kanak saya. Pokok itu menjadi tempat kami bermain. Tidak hairanlah jikalau kami  tiga sahabat berjanji akan bertemu di pokok itu selepas meninggalkan sekolah, walaupun di mana dan apa yang kami lakukan dalam hidup kami kemudian.

Saya tetap menunaikan janji saya. Pokok itu tidak lagi berdiri sejak 20 tahun yang lalu.  Bagaimana pun janji zaman kanak-kanak tetap saya tunaikan setiap 10 tahun bermula pada tahun 1975. Tahun 2015 genaplah 40 tahun selepas perjanjian kami. Kedua-dua kawan saya tidak muncul pada setiap waktu yang dijanjikan. Insya Allah sekiranya umur saya panjang saya akan berada di tempat itu pada tahun 2025.

Maka itu “pokok” sentiasa membayangi kehidupan saya. Pada tahun 1996 saya membeli sebuah rumah di Bukit Gasing, Petaling Jaya. Saya telah menanam sepohon jejawi dari kecil. Dua puluh tahun kemudian ia menjadi pohon besar dan mengancam rumah kami dengan akarnya yang kuat. Dua tahun yang lalu, dengan penuh rasa kesal saya terpaksa menebang pokok besar itu.

Setiap kali saya melihat pokok besar itu, saya teringat tentang “pokok” yang saya “kenal” sepanjang saya membesar.. Dan saya terfikir untuk “menghidupkan” pokok dalam imaginasi kreatif saya. Entah puluhan tahun saya memikirkan tentang sebuah drama yang berkisar di sekeliling “pokok”.  Saya membayangkan pelbagai scenario bagaimana pokok itu menjadi “watak utama”dalam drama saya.

Pada tahun 1980/81, saya menjadi siding pengarang majalah Dewan Budaya terbitan Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP). Ketua Bahagian Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Sastera (BPPS) ketika itu adalah Baharuddin Zainal atau Baha Zain (Datuk dan kemudiannya pemenang Anugerah Sasterawan Negara). Beliau mencadangkan saya membuat laporan penyiasatan tentang kehidupan malam di KL. Saya tidak perlu datang ke pejabat selama sebulan. Setiap malam saya akan menyusuri KL melihat sendiri kehidupan pelbagai penghuni malamnya.

Selama sebulan saya menemui penari kabaret dan dangdut, saya menjengah rumah urut dan rumah pelacuran, saya merayau lorong-lorong yang jarang dilalui orang, serta kelab, pelbagai tempat judi haram dan sarang samseng.

Saya mempersiapkan tujuh (7) siri rencana yang saya berikan nama “Bila Malam Bertambah Malam.”Agaknya mungkin terlalu kontroversil pembongkaran itu, Baha Zain mencadangkan hanya sebuah rencana yang disiarkan, itu pun nadanya telah dilunakkan dari laporan asal (Dewan Budaya, Julai 1981).

Daripada sekian banyak manusia yang saya temui, seorang wanita menarik perhatian saya. Beliau adalah seorang bartender di sebuah pub di Jalan Pahang. Saya hanya mengenal namanya sebagai “Ji” – berusia kira-kira 30-an. Beliau khabarnya bekas banduan, pernah terbabit dalam kes rompakan dan dadah. Tetapi Ji yang saya lihat di pub itu seorang wanita yang baik, prihatin dan suka menolong. Saya tahu reputasinya sebagai kasar dan celupar, tetapi dalam profesyen sedemikian, siapakah yang boleh menyalahkan beliau. Beliau masih cantik dan banyak peminat di pub itu.

Bagi anak muda seperti saya yang baru empat tahun keluar university dengan idealisme yang luar biasa, tentulah kehidupan Ji menarik perhatian saya. Saya tidak lama mengenalnya.  Beberapa bulan selepas habis tugasan malam untuk majalah Dewan Budaya itu saya singgah di pub itu, tetapi Ji sudah tidak lagi bekerja di situ. Malang sekali kisah bartender itu tidak dapat saya muatkan dalam laporan yang tersiar dalam majalah Dewan Budaya itu.

Bagaimanapun “Ji” saya rakamkan dalam cerpen saya, “Potret Seorang Anu Sebagai Anu” yang tersiar dalam majalah Dewan Sastera, Februari 1983. Bartender dalam cerpen itu saya beri nama Ji.

Lama selepas perkenalan saya dengan Ji, saya masih mengingat tentang perwatakan dan kehidupannya.  Saya enggan menggunakan ukuran moral dan agama untuk menilai beliau. Saya tidak mahu menetapkan buruk baik profesyen beliau. Tetapi saya melihat aspek kemanusiaan dari kehidupan Ji yang saya percaya penuh drama dan cabaran.

Ji saya jelmakan sebagai“Mardiah” dalam drama ini. Saya berikan latar-belakang saya sendiri tentang watak Mardiah. Saya tidak tahu apakah Ji ada kekasih, suami atau tinggal sendirian. Mardiah saya berikan sedikit latar-belakang Ji, tetapi dengan permasalahan yang berbeza. Saya tidak tahu siapa ayah Ji tetapi dalam watak yang saya jelmakan dalam “Pokok” Ji punya latar kehidupan yang amat dramatik.

Beliau anak kepada seorang ayah yang baik, terlalu baik hingga Mardiah menjatuhkan hukum:

“Kadang-kadang terfikir juga saya, apakah dia akan diberi ganjaran di akhirrat kerana jujurnya atau dihukum kerana kegagalannya mendidik anak-anaknya.”

Mardiah, mungkin juga Ji, melihat dunia yang brutal, kasar dan tanpa kemanusiaan. Mungkin orang baik tiada tempatnya di dunia yang menggilai kebendaan. Mardiah mahu menjadi baik. 

Mungkin dia tidak menemui kebaikan itu. Mungkin dia hanya menemui salvation apabila mengenali Darwis.

Saya tidak tahu apakah dilemma Ji sama dengan Mardiah. Saya tidak dapat menyelami kehidupan Ji dengan lebih mendalam. Tetapi saya dapat membina karaktor Mardiah dengan cermat.

Ji memang inspirasi saya untuk watak “Mardiah” – watak utama dalam “Pokok.” Tetapi Mardiah bukan Ji. Mungkin juga secara tidak sedar Mardiah adalah komposit pelbagai karaktor manusia yang pernah saya kenal atau saya temui. Tetapi Ji tidak terhenti setakat tahun 1981, watak itu mengganggu imaginasi saya bertahun-tahun hingga saya rakamkan dalam drama “Pokok”. 

Ji muncul dalam”Pokok” 36 tahun kemudian, tidak sepenuhnya tetapi sebahagian daripada watak yang saya bina.Entah mengapa saya berasa begitu puas. Pokok yang menjelma dalam pelbagai situasi dalam hidup saya kini saya gabungkan dengan seorang wanita yang penuh warna-warna yang mengharapkan pokok besar di hadapan rumahnya akan menaunginya.

Watak-watak lain melengkapi kehidupan Mardiah dalam “Pokok”. Darwis, lelaki malang yang akhirnya mengenal ketenangan dan kebahagiaan bersama Mardiah. Amud punya cerita panjang tentang perkahwinan dan survival dan Tuk Kaya yang sebenarnya melihat dunia hanya dari kaca mata kekayaannya.

Mardiah bagi saya terlalu berharga. Mardiah bukan sekadar seorang wanita yang kompleks – keras hati, degil, celupar, combative, tapi penuh humour serta playful, tetapi mendefinisikan semula kehidupannya setelah menemui Darwis. Banyak orang mungkin tidak faham (seperti juga Tuk Kaya dalam drama ini) mengapa orang secantik Mardiah boleh mengahwini Darwis yang “tidak punya apa-apa.”

“Mardiah” muncul 14 tahun selepas watak besar ciptaan saya bernama “Asiah Samiah”.

Saya jadikan Asiah Samiah judul drama saya, drama yang memenangai Hadiah Sastera pada tahun 2003. “Asiah Samiah” juga pernah memenangai Hadiah Sastera Negeri Johor pada tahun yang sama. Terdahulu daripada itu saya pernah memenangi Hadiah Sastera pada tahun 1986 kerana adaptasi pentas novel Hari-Hari Terakhir Seorang Seniman karya Anwar Rithwan.

Saya telah mengarahkan drama adaptasi itu dan selama dua tahun Badan Budaya DBP membawanya ke banyak tempat termasuk di Singapura. 

Drama itu juga memperkenalkan banyak pelakon yang kemudiannya menjadi pengarah dan pelakon teater dan filem yang hebat di negara ini.

“Pokok”adalah pengalaman menulis yang luar biasa. Saya jarang menulis drama yang berciri realis untuk pentas. “Asiah Samiah” masih terlihat nada eksperimental dan “absurd”nya. Sehingga ini “Asiah Samiah”  belum dipentaskan. Ia menjadi naskhah wajib untuk sastera tingkatan enam (Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan) sehingga ini.

Saya lebih dikenali sebagai salah seorang dramatis yang dikaitkan dengan aliran absurd di Malaysia bersama-sama Nordin Hassan, Dinsman, Hatta Azad Khan, Mana Sikana, Anuar Nor Arai, Zakaria Ariffin dan ramai lagi. Orang mengenal saya kerana teater eksperimental seperti “Kotaku Oh Kotaku”, “Angin Kering”, “Sang Puteri” “Dia” dan “Pemain”. Untuk menulis drama TV saya menggunakan nama “Jaafar Khan”. Pada penghujung tahun 70-an dan 80-an, drama-drama TV saya (yang hamper kesemuanya diterbitkan oleh Allahyarham Abdullah Zainol) disiarkan oleh RTM. Antara drama-drama terbitan RTM karya saya adalah “Asy Syura”. “Angin Bila Menderu”, “Anjung Batu”, “Pemandu Teksi”, “Pelari”, “Pak Tua” dan “Pendekar Raibah.”

Saya sudah meninggalkan dunia teater sejak tahun 1987. Arahan saya yang terakhir ialah “Tuk Selampit” karyaAllahyarham Dr Anuar Nor Arai. Itu pun tak dapat saya habiskan. Zakaria Ariffin mengambil alih tugas mengarahkan drama itu yang kemudiannya dibawa ke Pesta Teater Asean di Manila pada bulan Ogos tahun itu. Namun demikian saya tidak pernah melupakan teater. Kecintaan saya pada dunia teater tidak pernah padam. Sewaktu di UtusanMelayu (sebagai Ketua Pengarang dari 1992 hingga 1998) saya membantu menerbitkan beberapa buah drama besar, antaranya “Lantai T. Pinkie” karya A. Samad Said. Saya beruntung menjadi Pengerusi Media Prima Berhad, yang merupakan syarikat media terbesar dan memiliki syarikat menerbitkankan dungan atau content,  Primeworks.

Saya melihat perkembangan drama semasa yang jauh berbeza dengan zaman saya, Dinsman, Hatta, Anuar Araidan  Zakaria. Di KL, Panggung Eksperimen dan Panggung Drama DBKL selain Balai Budaya DBB, menjadi lantai di mana berkocaknya seni teater pada tahun-tahun  1970-an dan 1980-an.

Semua itu hanya tinggal kenangan.

Maka itu apabila saya menulis “Pokok” secara sedar saya mahu mengembalikan tradisi drama realis ke pentas –sesuai dengan semangat yang pernah ditiupkan oleh Usman Awang, Kala Dewata, Kalam Hamidi dan Bidin Subari.

Pengalaman menulis “Pokok” cukup istimewa bagi saya. Apabila ia tersiar dalam majalah Dewan Sastera pada bulan September 2017, saya tidak pernah terfikir ia akan dipentaskan sebegitu cepat. U-Wei menyatakan beliau terhuja dengan drama itu lantas berhasrat untuk mengarahkannya. U-Wei pengarah besar yang mencipta nama dengan Perempuan, Isteri Dan…, BuaiLaju-Laju, Kaki Bakar, Jogho dan Hanyut bersedia mengarahkan drama dari naskhah saya ini. Saya menganggapnya satu penghormatan.

Akibat banyak siri “ngeteh” bersamaU-Wei (pengarah), Syahid (penerbit), Sabri Yunus dan Aris Othman maka muncullah “Pokok” di pentas.

·        

The Launch of Tan Sri Leo Moggie’s From Longhouse to Capital: Recollections

At Badan Warisan, Jalan Stonor, KL

Saturday, 8^th December 2018

By TAN SRI JOHAN JAAFFAR

It is always fascinating to read the story of a boy, born literally in the “wilderness”, becoming “somebody” one day. And he is no ordinary “somebody” – he is an embodiment of what human achievement is all about. It is also a story about dedication, tenacity and commitment. This is an incredible book of an Iban boy who made his mark as an exemplary government officer, later on as a politician, in fact a minister, and then a leader of a corporate entity.

I must confess that I find this book exhilarating. I have read many memoirs, autobiographies and biographies. It is a genre that is always high on my list of reading priorities. I am moved and inspired by some and many of these works remain etched in my memory for years.

Nostalgia excites. As we get older, memories come flashing back in bits and pieces, like images from old movies, full of drama, laughter and even tears. And there will be family members, friends, teachers and those who we met along the way. All of us  have pleasant and  not so pleasant encounters with people we met in our lives. These memories come cascading down, which need to be recorded before we lose them all.

As a journalist I have met many individuals, leaders in various disciplines, legends some of them, monumental figures in their own right. I have traveled the world over. I have dined with cannibals (literally), conversed and interviewed corporate shakers and movers, even the most ruthless despots and alleged terrorists. I have met the good, the bad and the ugly among the so-labelled “leaders”. I had conversations with Nelson Mandela, J.P. Kalam, Vaclav Havel, Margaret Thatcher, Suharto, to name a few, even having breakfast with the notorious Gulbuddin Hekmateyar, leader of the Hisbi Islamic faction in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in the spring of 1989, now high on the list of the most wanted terrorists by the Americans. I have read their writings and writings about them. Some I liked, some I hated.

But literature about people never fail to amaze me. I find it interestingto see the number of memoirs in the book shops today. It is an industry by itself. I was in the UK recently, reading Becoming by the former First Lady of the United States, Michele Obama, and a biography of one of the most daring women journalists, Marie Colvin, entitled In Extremis by Lindsay Hilsum.

Everyone has his or her own story to tell. If you think ordinary folks cannot write memoirs, think again. Ordinariness can even be a virtue. Who would imagine that a story of a teacher living in New York could become a best-seller. No kidding. The late Frank McCourt is one.  Frank made his mark with his Angela’s Ashes published in 1996. He was born in New York in 1930 to Malachy and Angela McCourt. It is not easy to raise children in Depression-era America. The family moved back to Limerick, Ireland, in 1934. Things got worse. Frank’s father left them, the mother had to work hard to feed the children, three of them died of diseases related to malnutrition. They lived in a house that they shared with rats. Frank went back to the States, joined the army and later became a teacher.

Angela’s Ashes was a massive hit when it was published. Gripping poverty was the theme. He later came out with ‘Tis (1999) and Teacher Man (2006). It doesn’t matter that even his mother has doubts about the authenticity of the events he narrated in the book. He was denounced, in his own words, “from the hill, pulpit and barstool” for disgracing the good name of Limerick and Ireland.

But then, he started a whole new genre in memoir writing – “misery memoirs”. There is an avalanche of books under that genre now.

This book, From Longhouse to Capital:Recollections, certainly is not in the tradition of McCourt’s type of memoirs. It is in a class of its own. This is a story of the first Iban to graduate with a university degree, the first to have an MA, then an MBA. He has done his people proud, his country even prouder. This isn’t Angela’s Ashes for sure!

I was given the book to read, with a little note attached, and subsequently had a phone conversation with the author who requested me to launch the book. I am honoured of course.

This book is written by Tan Sri Datuk Amar Leo Moggie, no ordinary bloke in Malaysian politics and the corporate circle. I read the book and I was fixated. To say that I enjoyed the book is an under statement. In fact I find the book fascinating. It is well written, too well written. The author in his preface claims that this is merely a book of recollections, it is not even a memoir, but let the readers and history judge, for the difference between a memoir, recollections or autobiography is demarcated by a thin line. Let’s not get into a debate about semantics. This is indeed a memoir, by one of the best minds the country has ever produced. Or call it recollections, for all I know, it is a collection of memories of an individual about his life, moments and events, both public and private, that took place in his lifetime. This book could have been titled The Life and Times of Leo Moggie! 

His granddaughter, Didi, did the right thing when she pestered Tan Sri Leo Moggie to write his own book after reading Sidney Poitier’s Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter. Who could forget him, a Black actor who carried a movie single-handedly on his shoulders, something unthinkable back in 1963, when he played the role of Homer Smith an itinerant worker, in Lilies of the Field.For that he won the Best Actor award at the Oscars, the first for a Black actor. In 1967 he was Virgil Tibbs, in the movie In The Heat of the Night, a devastatingly frank movie about racism in America. 

A black Philadelphia policeman suspected of murder has to face a racist police chief in the form of Rod Steiger in small town Sparta, Mississippi is a tough role to play. In the same year he was playing Mark Thackeray in the hit movie, To Sir, With Love. Those three were monumental films that defined not only the actor but about race in the UK and the US during those years. 

In his memoir The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography, Poitier wrote:

“I have no wish to play the pontificating fool, pretending that I’ve suddenly come out with the answers to all life’s questions. Quite the contrary, I began this book as an exploration, an exercise in self-questing. In other words, I wanted to find out as I looked back at a long and complicated life, with many twists and turns, how well I’ve done at measuring up to the values I myself have set.”

I can’t ignore those words by Poitier as I read Tan Sri’s book. Yes, this book is not trying to answer “all life’s questions” but more like “an exploration”, even an exercise in “self-questing” and looking back at “a long complicated life”, and how much the author has done to measure up to the values he has set for himself.

Tan Sri Leo Moggie

This is no ordinary book for what the author went through is not an ordinary journey. This book is so laden with facts and events that one wonders at the author’s incredible memory, as in his preface, he confesses that he never kept a diary. What you are reading in this book are events arranged chronologically, flawless to a point, narrating every aspect of his involvement from his schooling and university days to his time working as a pegawai kerajaan (government officer), and later his involvement in politics for 30 years.

I guess having a former history teacher as his significant other half, Puan Sri Datin Amar Elizabeth, would certainly help in reminding him of the need to pen a feel-good memoir to savour a nearly forgotten past.

The entire book is so well structured and well documented that it is more than just about the author, it is also part-history of his community, his political party, his state and his country. The personal story of the author intertwined with that of the nation. It is therefore not an exaggeration to say this is a book that needed to be written, published and read. Tan Sri Leo Moggie’s documentation of events, especially the ones that mattered to the nation in which he was involved directly or otherwise, is superb. He was in the thick of things at two of the crucial ministries during its formative years, that of the Ministry of Energy, Telecommunications and Post and the Ministry of Works. 

Those were the days when the Multimedia Super-Corridor was mooted, the Bakun Dam (with all its controversies) was built, the North-South and East-West Highways were constructed and the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) was designed and built.

I must say, I can claim a stake in Tan Sri’s ministry’s foray into information technology. I was one of the first individuals appointed  as a board member of the newly created Multimedia Development Council (MDC, which later became MDec)under the leadership of the late Tan Sri Othman Yeop Abdullahin 1996. Yes, it was uncharted territory back then. Dr Mahathir Mohamad was in his first tour as the Prime Minister. No one was sure about the river of knowledge and garbage (the Internet) and how we were going to deal with that.

But MDC was needed to spearhead the MSC initiatives. To have an MDC office among palm trees to push forward one of the boldest and most audacious multimedia initiatives the world has ever knownwasn’t easy. You could hear the sneering by sceptical Malaysians and neighbours. What were we trying to prove? Dr Mahathir, as stated by Tan Sri Leo, seized the visionary implication of the futurist Kenichi Ohmae when he presented a proposal on “The Making of a Malaysian Miracle.” A visionary that Dr Mahathir is, the MSC was his child till he left office in 2003.

Thanks to the minister at the helm, we did remarkably well, considering. We had a good head start. But sadly, as pointed out by Tan Sri in this book, the MSC initiatives were derailed at some point because those who were entrusted to spearhead the MSC was thinking more about real estate development rather than creating our own Silicon Valley. Some of the ambitious projects, like the E-Village, stalled.

But more importantly, one must look at Tan Sri’s early years as pegawai daerah. His first posting at Kapit in February 1966 was a real eye opener. Back then, Sarawak was hardly three years in the Malaysian federation. Backwardness in all aspects of development was the feature. For  Tan Sri serving in Kapit, though not in the district he was born,  was “balik kampung”, and more so “giving back to society.” He was uprooted from his village early in life. But those years serving the people in such areas brought awareness and a sense of pride. He gained another experience though, leading the Borneo Literature Bureau in 1968.

But the juiciest part of the book is about politics. I will not dwell on that, read those chapters for yourself, and you’ll understand how politics have impacted upon the author, for better or otherwise. Thirty years is a long time in politics. Rightly or wrongly, politicians affect us in more ways than one. Politics is the game of the impossible. And politics is not for the weak-hearted. I am no judge in Tan Sri Leo’s political adventures or his trials and tribulations in that vocation. He was heading a party (SNAP) that became part of the political construct of his state and certainly had its bearing at the national level.

I believe he is a man of integrity and places good governance above all else in politics. If at all there is honesty and goodness in politics, Tan Sri Leo is an example. I have no intention of making a bold stroke of generalisation here, but politicians are mostly driven by self-interest more than anything else. The culture of politics is one that can be horrendously flawed. One can easily be sucked into the vortex of misnomer and inappropriateness. In short, power corrupts. But not all politicians are bad, some are excellent, but political culture is changing the good to become bad.

I support this statement in the book,

“The public want our politicians to worry more about improving the country’s corruption perception index or ensuring our poverty rate that actually has gone down and the gap between the rich and the poor that has narrowed rather than widened. Economic inequality is a recipe for disunity.”

I guess that is Tan Sri’s guiding principle as a politician.

In rural areas like Sarawak, as pointed out by the author, good educational  facilities and basic infrastructure such as roads, potable water and electricity, are still important. In most cases pembangunan, as we understand it, is taken for granted. There are politicians who are saying, let’s move beyond politik pembangunan. In many rural areas in Sabah and Sarawak, solar-based electricity is still in place. Even then, the budget allocated to provide basic infrastructure for the rakyat can go astray.

Tan Sri Leo Moggies gives credit where credit is due. He is thankful even to the longboat drivers who took him places in Kapit – the likes of Balang, Hassan and Said. These unsung heroes were merely names in the registry of government servants. But to Tan Sri  Leo Moggie, “people like them were indispensable to the functioning administration of rural Sarawak in the 1960s.”

He provides names in this book. He criticises. He is frank and never minces words. But he does it with style and finesse. He doesn’t shy away from criticising policies that he feels are not beneficial to the people. He is critical about the state of racial relations in the country. He is concerned about the ugly head of religious extremism that is surfacing. He has reasons to worry about the divisiveness in current Malaysian society. Thus he is  fond of his school days back at BatuLintang. There was no “Us”and “Them” back then – they were all students of different races.

Perhaps, that is reflected in the school song;

It’s a far cry from Kuching to Brunei

For Dayaks, Ibans, Dusuns and Malays

And for Kenyahs, Muruts, Kayans far away

Yet all of us are gathered here today.

The fact that he remembers those lyrics even today and how name after name of persons of different races are reflected in the book speaks volumes of his view about the idea of muhibbah and perpaduan for a country like ours.

Tan Sri Leo Moggie has seen it all. I believe this is a work in progress. There are perhaps many more recollections thathe needs to record later. This is indeed a good start. Tan Sri has woven a narrative worthy of attention. With self-conscious understanding that, in an era of divisive politics and political correctness, to tell the truth isn’t easy for one can easily be misconstrued for the most harmless of statements. But Tan Sri Leo Moggie is not seeking controversy here. There is nothing controversial in fact. But telling things as it is, the Leo Moggie way, in such erudite recollections is a sure-fire way to win hearts and minds.

This book of frank, jubilant and kaleidoscopic recollections by a towering personality needs to be read by all Malaysians. 

Thank you.

Forum Media Kebangsaan Industri 4.0: Kewartawanan Merentasi Pelbagai Platform

25 September 2019

Taylor’s University, Subang Jaya

Malaysia

Keynote Address

Rebooting the Media Industry:

Present and Future Challenges

Oleh Tan Sri Johan Jaaffar

(Tokoh Wartawan Negara)

 

I must admit that this is one of the toughest speeches I have given. It was a painful exercise even to look up pointers and facts. I found very little literature to suggest that the future of newspapers is bright and sunny. I encountered material after material espousing an imminent demise of newspapers. The newspaper business is to be ditalqinkan (to be given the last rites for the dead according to Muslim practices).

I was crowned Tokoh Wartawan Negara by my peers, presented in an eventful and historic night organised by the Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) in May this year. And yet, here I am, looking at an industry, which I have been involved with for many years, as one with a bleak, uncertain future.

The newspaper industry is a sunset industry, many would agree to that. Newspapers have been dying in slow-motion for a decade or so already, some would argue. There is no future in the newspaper business. It can’t be saved, even with the best of intentions.

I don’t need to look far. What has happened to the newspaper that I edited for six years (1992-1998) is testimony to this. It pains me to see the state of my former company and the newspaper I am always associated with. All is not well in the state of Denmark, newspaper-wise, if I may quote Shakespeare.

Utusan Melayu, the newspaper company set up in 1939, eighty years ago to be exact, is in trouble now. Back then, the whole purpose was to publish a national daily that would be, in the words of scholar W.R.Roffin his tome, The Origins of Malay Nationalism, “owned, financed and staffed solely by Malays of the Archipelago.”

It was a tall order for Yusof Ishak and the first editor of the newspaper, Abdul Rahim Kajai, later named Bapa Kewartanan Melayu or the Father of Malay Journalism. Yusof later became the first president of the Republic of Singapore. With a working capital of $2,000 at the time, Utusan Melayu, in jawi script, began its humble journey to become one of the most feared and respected newspapers in the land.

In 1967 it started the romanised edition, Utusan Malaysia, ten years after the Straits Times group published Berita Harian. It was no secret that Berita Harian was initially nothing more than a translation of the English daily.

Utusan Melayu, the company became a public listed entity on 16^th August 1994. During its heydays, 600,000 copies of Mingguan Malaysia(the Sunday edition) were published and 350,000 copies of Utusan Malaysia were printed a day. It had 13 magazines under its stable.

But what is important to note is the role played by the jawi paper at the height of Malay national consciousness and political awareness prior to and after Merdeka (Independence). Utusan Melayu was an audacious daily that dared to take risks. Much to the embarrassment of the British colonial masters who derogatorily labelled it as nothing more than “the pink paper”, Utusan Melayu became a formidable force that was credible and threatening to them.

Even after Merdeka, Utusan Melayu was a thorn in the side of the Malay ruling elite who believed that Utusan Melayu was influenced by the “Leftists” (mereka yang berfaham kiri).That was a good enough excuse for UMNO to wrestle editorial control of Utusan Melayu in 1961. The journalists were up in arms. Equipped with only determination and commitment, they fought back. They launched a strike that lasted 90 days. They lost. Said Zahari, the editor at the time, was taken under the Internal Security Act and was incarcerated for 17 long years.

The way I see it, what happened in 1961 was a defining moment in the history of newspapering in this country. Press freedom died at that moment, never to be recovered, perhaps forever. The fiercely independent journalists of Utusan Melayu paid dearly for their convictions.  Many moved on with their lives, others stayed on in the business, some working for-various other publications, remembering the dark clouds that descended upon them and their brothers and sisters in 1961.

Utusan Melayu may have lost its freedom in 1961. But that did not stop generations of editors and journalists thereafter to carry their brand of audacity. The “Utusan Melayu brand” was a trademark. They could be fiercely loyal to the “Malay cause” but they were never racists.They fought injustices, religious extremism and backwardness among the Malays.

They knew who owned the company or who had the majority stake. That was UMNO. But that did not deter them to be, in many instances, the conscience of their race.

I was asked repeatedly if I was the “Hang Tuah” who placed loyalty above all else. I can’t speak for others. But history will judge me for what I did, for the exposés I made, for the leaders (including UMNO leaders) who I held accountable for their actions.  I lost my job eventually but that had been due to the grand tussle involving the then Prime Minister (who happens to be the current prime minister) and his deputy in 1998 (who happens to be the PM-designate whenever the former leaves office, or so the story about the promise goes). 

I have a simple theory about the control of UMNO on Utusan Melayu. It is inversely proportional to its own strength. When UMNO was in the position of strength, they somehow looked the other way. When they were weakened, they exercised a near-strangling position on the newspaper.

Perhaps they were significantly weakened during their preparation for the 2018 general election. Utusan Malaysia and TV3 were unashamedly used as their election tools. It cost the paper and the television station not just credibility and respect but readership, viewership and revenues.  

Like me, many Utusan Melayu editors lost their jobs.I wasn’t alone, joining the ranks of the late Tan Sri Zainuddin Maidin and his predecessors, Tan Sri Mazlan Nordin and Tan Sri Melan Abdullah. We carried that badge of honour in being fired as editors. Perhaps it’s true what they say, that good soldiers don’t die, they fade away, whereas good editors don’t fade away, they get fired.

Until only of late, no chief editor of Utusan Melayu had left the company without controversy.

I would like to believe that we were all collateral damage in the grand political chess game involving some of the most refined and consummate conspirators and political operators ever to roam the land.

Technically I “resigned” in July 1998, some three months before Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was fired on 2^nd September 1998. They had to “clean-up” the Utusan Melayu and Berita Harian groups and TV3, as these were powerful platforms before the advent of social media.

Yes, we knew who owned Utusan Melayu (or who had the majority shares in the company) but even under such circumstances, it didn’t deter us from being critical, vocal and fair. We sincerely believed in the freedom of the press. We understood the limitations of that freedom in a multi-racial country like ours. We believed it is our right and moral obligation to call figures in the public eyes to account. We believed in being the ears and eyes of the public.

There are people who have been asking me, why talk about press freedom when there is none? Is it true that the Malaysian press has been know-timed into believing that they have a role to play as “agents of change” in the process of pembangunan (development) and kemajuan (progress)?  Are they being timid or silenced into submission? Or were they merely unapologetic cheerleaders for whoever was at the helm, now Pakatan Harapan, before that UMNO and Barisan Nasional?

Those are relevant questions. We have been asking those questions too as we went along. Were we complicit to some of the ills and injustices inflicted upon individuals or even our society over the years? Were we merely looking elsewhere when misdeeds became full-fledged scandals and these scandals later became international disgrace? Sincerely we asked those questions too.

But to be honest, many of us tried our level best to ensure we played the roles as expected of us. We did our best under such circumstances. There were times when we were not proud of what we did. But we believed we had tried our level best.

We made mistakes too. We are not supposed to take sides, but we did. In one of my pieces for The Star(1^st October 2018) I asked the question that everyone of us ought to be asking: Are we complicit in the 1MDB scandal? “Why did most of us fail to voice out concerns when the 1MDB scandal was unfolding?”

My contention was that, too many people, including the mainstream media contributed to the problem by ignoring the red flags and choosing not to question the official line.

In my piece I wrote:

1MDB is a slap on the face of a cowering media.

1MDB is a wake-up call for the local media.

Docility sucks. 

Never again, that should happen. We must learn something from what happened in those years leading up the full-fledged expose by Sarawak Report and other news portals.

The truth is, there is no ultimate press freedom anywhere in the world. Even in the US, the so-labelled liberal press is being pitted against the conservative ones – it is like The Rest vs Fox News or The Rest vs President Donald Trump. Someone famously said, freedom of the press belongs only to those who own it.

Yet the war of attrition against journalists is getting new traction. With Trump at the helm of the most powerful nation on planet Earth, and the way he perceives the media, we are in for more troubling times.

The United States of America is supposed to be a beacon of democracy and free press. Trump has called “the fake news media” enemy of the people. Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous for it incites more than just distrust and hatred towards the media. Which is totally unacceptable.

But what about us – the practitioners – where are we in the scheme of things?What about the need for the public to respect us as professionals? We have been soldiering on all the while. We have been facing a cynical and sceptical public. We have been given all kind of names and labels. We have to live with it.

We are just doing our jobs. We are not taking advantage of other people’s miseries or misfortunes. We do not want our names on the hall of fame just for exposing the misdeeds of our political masters or the scandals of corrupt personalities.

Jamal Khashoggi need not have died. So too 60 others journalists who have perished in 2018 alone. Journalists died in conflicts areas bringing wars and skirmishes to readers, listeners and viewer sin the comfort of their homes.

Anyone covering Afghanistan and Syria today knew the risks. But like their brethren before and now and perhaps in the future, they will be there putting their limbs and lives in danger.

I was in Afghanistan in the Spring of 1989, somewhere in the Kunar province to be exact, not too far from Jalalabad covering the civil war there. I knew what it was like. It was not the adrenaline that propelled us, nor was it fame and fortune. Again, we were just doing our jobs. Don’t blame us for that.

Perhaps we are indeed doing a thankless job. But we are professionals. We go to jail, we got hurt, some of us died. Occupational hazards you may say. But we do what we are supposed to do. Forget about the notion of the romance of journalism or the movies you watched about brave journalists covering wars and coming back to their loved ones. Happy ending guaranteed despite the odds and challenges.

Journalism is more than that. 

We can have a serious discourse on the matter. But for me, our conversation about the role of journalists must go beyond that.

We have to accept the fact that the newspaper is more than just about the enterprise of news-papering. It is not only about the conversation on raucous chauvinism or unapologetic political correctness. Or about sex, lies and democracy, the three things that sell newspapers, they say.

It is also about quality, not just what the readers want. It is about our responsibility to do our best as journalists. It is about the role of the Fourth Estate. It is about accountability and fairness.

And about bringing sanity to a reading public that is obsessed with film stars, celebrities and more film stars and celebrities. It is about not relegating ourselves to prurient journalism fixated with telling the official truth and avoiding dubious journalistic methods. 

We need to recognise the important fact that newspapers and the media as a whole are, first and foremost, business ventures. They are about money. About resources. About profit. About the bottom line. Why would quality newspapers fold? Why is it that even notoriously explicit and salaciously sensational papers are suffering?

Back then, editors were reminded of a famous but anonymous 19^th Century verse about Fleet Street:

Tickle the public, make ‘em grin

The more you tickle, the more you’ll win

Teach the public, you’ll never get rich

You’ll live like a beggar and die in the ditch.

We were not just editors. We learned fast to make adaptations. We made money for our companies. Our companies prospered. Back then, when I was at the helm of Utusan Melayu, the total advertisement spending for Malaysia was about RM3.5 billion, 60 per cent of that was for the newspapers, the rest for TV. People advertised in our papers. Our papers were influential and a money-making venture.

That was before the Internet, before the whole enterprise of digital revolution disrupted our business. We thought we were formidable. Many of the newspaper companies in Malaysia were forging ahead with lots of confidence into the digital world in the early 1990's. We thought technology would propel us to greater heights.

It did, at least for a while. The newsroom became fully computerised. Back then the Internet was still in its infancy. Gone were the days when reporters were calling from phone booths and the layout of pages was done manually. We were excited. Hand-phones came, then short message system or SMS. WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram were a decade away. The digital revolution was a sure thing, but for us, we sincerely believed that it would help us more than it would disrupt, destruct or even deconstruct us.

How wrong we were. We were literally caught with our pants down. What we once believed as “unthinkable” became “inevitable”. It affected us, our business, the entire discipline of journalism and perhaps the future of the newspaper and media. Journalism was being hollowed out by massive structural shifts, readers’ preferences, latest trends and the cost of the newspaper business. After all this is an era of Industry 4.0. The “New Industrial Revolution” is taking place and it is changing almost everything – not just the way we communicate but the way we live.

We now realise how labour-intensive our business was, how vulnerable we were as a business entity, how the old models of news-papering were being challenged to the core, and how we were going to see more disruptions and the possibility of the biggest wave of journalistic lay-offs ever in the history of newspapers.

We were seeing that with our own eyes. Looks at the media conglomerates around us. Over the last two years alone, at least 3,000 people lost their jobs. I am not talking about only Utusan Melayu; even the mighty Media Prima group, the Star Publications and Astro are facing difficulties.

Datuk Ho Kay Tat, Chief Executive Officer of The Edge, pointed out at the Malaysian Media Awards and Conference by the Media Specialists Organisation, that from 2014 to 2018, shareholders of The Star Media Group, Media Prima Bhd, Chinese International, Utusan Melayu and Berjaya Media had lost approximately RM3.7 billion in market value.

How things have changed over the last few years. In 2013, Media Prima was registering a yearly revenue of RM2.3 billion a year. This year they are lucky if they can hit RM1.3 billion. Media Prima is the only fully integrated media company in the country today, with media assets ranging from TV, radio, outdoor advertising, to the NSTP group.

I should know. I was the Chairman of Media Prima Bhd for six years (2009 to 2015).

Media Prima was at the right place when convergence of media assets proved to be its winning formula. But the downside is that one of its subsidiaries, the NSTP group, is literally bleeding and dragging the parent company down as well.

Take the case of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). It has businesses in print, digital, radio, outdoor media as well as property and aged-care. It was like when MRCB owned NSTP; the former had interests in banking and property too. But even the mighty SPH reported a 44 per cent drop in its third-quarter net profit to $26.5 million from $46.9 million a year earlier.

To say that all newspaper companies are affected is an understatement. There are naysayers who believe that in the next five years, almost all newspapers in the world will cease to exist in their traditional form. The tide can’t be changed. The die is cast. It is just a matter of time. If at all, the end is to be delayed, not halted.

The reality is that fewer people are reading the newspaper. Every time a reader dies, no one new is taking his or her place. When anyone of us move into an apartment or a condominium, the first thing we do is to stop subscription of newspapers. Newspaper circulation has been dropping consistently since 2000, at a rate of 10 per cent per year since then.

It takes Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, probably the world’s richest man in the world today, to buy over The Washington Post, the paper that will be remembered as the one that brought down President Nixon and known for its many other exposés or investigative reporting.

The Los Angeles Times was bought over by the wealthiest man in California. One of the most respected newspapers in the United Kingdom, The Guardian, is now controlled by a foundation and its online version is being kept alive by donations.

Therefore,we can’t really harp on the likes of Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar al Bukhary who bought over UMNO’s stake in Media Prima or that he aimed to save Utusan Melayu (which he did not, though he has had a 20-per cent stake in the company since the 1990s). Perhaps, online newspapers need crowd-funding or donations in the future to survive.

Datuk Ho Kay Tat made a pertinent point when he raised the issue about the rise of the digital duopoly that is destroying the news business. Companies in Malaysia and elsewhere are shifting their ad spend to social media and digital platforms, mainly Facebook and Google. The duopoly now controls 80 per cent of the digital ad revenue. Last year alone, according to Datuk Ho, Facebook made US$55.8 billion in revenue, 80 per cent of which was from digital advertising. Google, on the other hand, recorded a US$11.8 billion in ad revenue, which was 85 per cent of its total earnings. One must also take note that while Amazon is a distant third, it will further hurt the media industry.

We simply can’t compete with them. And things are getting worse.

Now, where do we go from here?

The news business apparently is not the exclusive right of media companies. Anyone can be a reporter. A nasty road accident outside Taylor’s University now will be on YouTube real-time or on any of the social media platforms. There is no need to wait for the news bulletin update on Astro Awani or for TV3’s Buletin Utama at 8.00 pm tonight.

Everyone is a reporter. What you need is a smartphone. Citizen journalism is real.

Our obsession with social media platforms has turned us into tech-animals. We socialise less now. We are addicted to our gadgets. We spend hours on it. The world is at a standstill, for everyone is holding on to the little, smart, yet distracting, gadget for whatever information coming through it.

Serious journalism is at stake.

But at least there are people out there who still believed that the mainstream media remains the true main source of information, a platform that must continue to be trusted. Datuk A. Kadir Jasin, a veteran newsman himself and former editor of the New Straits Times,who is currently the media and communication adviser to the Prima Minister, argued that the mainstream media industry comprised trained and licensed professionals bounds by ethics and laws in their pursuit of true and verified information.

According to Kadir, “It differs from social media, which is not news, but a social medium that can be used by anyone and everyone to say whatever they want, just like in the coffee shops.”

“So, we don’t have to get muddled with what social media offers, as correct information can only be obtained from the newspapers, radio, websites and television,” he said.

 I am sure many would disagree with Kadir. It is for us, comforting to hear that.

The truth is, the social media revolution is changing everything. Social media platforms care little about “truth”. Truth is elusive. Who cares where we get our news from or whether such news are true or fake.We have created what I call a “forward generation” – to mean we forward what we get on our smartphones or other smart gadgets, usually without even thinking or batting an eyelid. In many cases we don’t even subscribe or agree to what we forwarded. Fake news get traction because of that.

The way I look at it, the whole notion of “news” needs reviewing.

 There is a silver lining to this, I reckon. There is an opportunity for media companies and media practitioners to relook at the entire scenario, truthfully and sincerely. It is time to rethink the way we do things. There is an opportunity for a new beginning or the rebirth of a new news agenda.

The social media phenomenon is simply too consuming. While we acknowledge that there is no sign of this abating, we hear about the need for digital detoxification. There is an overall news-fatigue emanating from social media. People will demand quality news. Not flashes of events masquerading as news. 

But first we have to regain the trust of the people. We need to ensure the public that we can provide them with real, quality, objective and balanced news. We all know news is a commercial property. It is show business. It is not cheap. For quality news to be produced, it needs to be subsidised.

On the other hand, not many media companies will survive, which is good for the industry as a whole. It is also about choosing the kaca (glass) from the intan (diamond), as the Malays put it, the good ones from the bad, the credible ones from the not, and the reliable ones from the unreliable lot.

The painful process must not stop at that. We must bring in only the best, the most reliable, the truly professionals. We understand there will be staff burnout under current uncertainties. The pressure of the present newsroom can be quite a challenge.

 We must also start rethinking about the newsroom. We need a totally new concept of a smart, complete, state-of the art newsroom – a super newsroom, if you like. It will not be the crew of four covering an event for a news station, it will be a one-person backpack journalism style – capable of producing fast, reliable and interesting news items.

Many news organisations are investing a lot more on technology now. At one time it was about investing in computerisation. But no longer. More and more publishers are looking at investing in Artificial Intelligence (AI)and Machine Learning (ML). Editors can’t be replaced by machines, of course. Probably we have to cater for more personalised content and better presentations. Or shall we look at robo-journalism to help us minimise cost and avoid human mistakes? Robotic news anchors are real and perhaps the newsroom too needs ego-free and unbiased journos for the future. 

While we agree that technology is an enabler for better journalism, we must also accept the fact that eventually it is the journalists and the editors behind the news that matter. Thus, we need to re-look at media studies. It cannot be business as usual. The old curriculum sucks, and sucks spectacularly. We must revamp the entire media scholarship, not looking at journalism from the prism of the old schools but incorporating all the other relevant disciplines.

Journalism schools must be re-assessed, students must be reminded of the new realities of media business and operation and the entire discipline of news-gathering, processing and disseminating.

The business models, too, must be changed. Media companies must re-look at the way they do things, how they operate and how they derive their income. The news industry must look at itself as more than just about providing news. Industry players need to remember the mistake made by transport companies before, those who forgot that they were in the logistics industry. The outlook should be more holistic and inclusive.

Probably news do not sell the way they used to. Not via a newspaper. Or on TV. There are many platforms where news can be accessed. Perhaps the newspaper companies must not fight social media platforms but use them to their advantage. Media companies of course have been utilising social media as a marketing and promotional channel.

As newspapers begin strengthening their online content, they face the challenge of monetising part of it. It is harder to make money with online newspapers. Most people believe that everything online is free. The experience of the digital video platform, Tonton,is an eye-opener. Despite boasting 3.4 million registered viewers, Media Prima Bhd had a tough time in monetising its potential. Why do we need Tonton when YouTube is free?

It is time that media practitioners look hard and deep into themselves. Things are changing. The time when Rahim Kajai started Utusan Melayu in 1939 was an era different from the time of the company’s legendary editors – Said Zahari, Tan Sri Melan Abdullah, Tan Sri Mazlan Nordin, Tan Sri Zainuddin Maidin. And their time was different from mine in the 1990s.

There are very few left of my generation - Datuk CC Liew, Tan Sri Zainuddin Maidin, Datuk Kadir Jasin, Tan Sri Rahman Sulaiman, Datuk V.K. Chin, Datuk Ng Poh Tip, Datuk MohdNazri Abdullah, Datuk  Ahmad Talib, Datuk RejalArbee,  Zainon Ahmad, Datuk Hardev Kaur, Datuk Khalid Mohd, Datuk Seri Azman Ujang, Datuk Seri Wong Chun Wai.

A new crop of editors and journalists are taking over now.

I have only this advice for them: Make adjustments. Adapt. 

The truth of the matter is, I am not just looking at a total revamp, I am looking at re-booting the total industry.

Let me put all these in perspective.

Firstly, I am using examples of places that I am familiar with. Secondly,I am not a naysayer. I am not even a sceptic. I am just trying to be realistic and pragmatic.

The death of the newspaper is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. But in years to come, I am looking only at the survival of very few newspapers. The great days of newspapers have long gone. They will become smaller and even less influential. But only the best will survive.

The news media organisation is at the crossroad. No one can predict what will happen from now on. Are the threats seen now merely the tip of an iceberg? Or is there hopelessness on the whole? The entire ship is floundering. The next big question asked by buyers and subscribers of newspapers is, why do we need newspapers when we can get news elsewhere? Are we still relevant?

Let us ponder the future – the challenges that will be formidable for the industry, for practitioners and for people like me – an unrepentant former newsman.

Thank you.

-      TSJJ