Inverted Pyramid versus Narrative Journalism

My interest in media was embellished with a fresh and novel perspective. The fun thing about media is no longer just thinking about how governments utilize media to stay in power, contemplating how mainstream media paint and illustrate the illusive idealism that everything in the world is beautiful and perfect, or imagining what Rupert Murdoch is capable of doing.

I was introduced to a whole new (relatively new in Malaysia) genre of news-reporting called Narrative Journalism.

I was one of the privileged few to participate in a by-invitation-only media workshop recently, entitled “The Role of Media in Religious and Racial Harmonious Building”. This workshop, as one would have imagined, is to explore the ethics of journalists in reporting race and religion issues, especially in a country where race is (sadly) still one of the main preoccupations of politicians and people in general. It is especially hurting to see other countries moving forward rapidly while we are still reckoning the past over small menial subjects like race and religion, unwilling to embrace the future to face conundrums of greater magnitude, like globalization for instance.

In a room filled with journalists and journalism students, I was probably the only “engineering student” in there. In the whole day event, the first part kicked off with a forum where two highly experienced veteran journalist gave their views on media reporting in racially polarized Malaysia. Mr Bob Teoh is the English Editor of Sin Chew i-Com. Mr Baradan Kuppusamy on the other hand, is a freelance journalist and is an active contributor to Time magazine, among others. Mr Baradan claimed to have threw a chair in the office of The Star in front of his editor, because – as one would have imagined would have happen between an ethical journalist and an editor who needs to adhere to strict news reporting guidelines set by the owner (government) – Mr Baradan had some problems with the editorial policy.

The highlight of the day, if of course, a media workshop by a highly experienced media expert, Dr. Janet Steele, an Associate Professor of Journalism at the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University in Washington D.C.

Dr. Steele is no doubt a source of inspiration. She is highly passionate about media in this part of the world, visiting Malaysia and Indonesia regularly, and more recently producing a research paper on the media landscape in Malaysia, from what I gathered from my world wide web voyage. Most intriguingly, she took on the highly agonizing – but really exciting – process of learning a new language – the Bahasa Indonesia. That took her 6 years, and it ultimately is a worthy investment. Her ability to converse in Bahasa Indonesia opens up doors of opportunities. Immediately after the South Asian tsunami, she found herself doing some translating job, at a time where information has to be translated as many languages as possible to reach out as many people as possible. Due to similarities between the Malaysian national language and that of Indonesia, she was fascinated by how Malaysiakini – one of the very few independent news source (read: non-government-owned) in Malaysia – works, and had spend her summers in Malaysiakini office to learn more about them and to give advice. I imagine advices on how to maintain journalistic integrity and at the same time to continue to be able to obtain permit to continue operations.

Her involvement in the workshop is another of her contribution to the Malaysian media landscape. She hoped to help Malaysian journalists to address the ethical dilemma in every journalist when writing about race relations as well as religious affairs, especially in a place call Malaysia. The dilemma is whether to write about them, or not. And if to write, how are they going to do so without igniting public riots and evoking public disorder?

Dr Steele was quick to issue a disclaimer, saying that she has no “right” answer of how to do it, but she believes narrative journalism will help. Journalists in the US have been practicing this for many years in reports pertaining to race relations and religious affairs. She was kind enough to bring a few copies of sample news reports that are written in this genre from The Washington Post.

Narrative journalism, according to Wikipedia, is the interpretation of a story and the way in which the journalist portrays it, be it fictional or non-fictional. In easier words, it tells a story. I was particularly intrigued by another interpretation of what narrative journalism is, by Suzy Fleming of Florida Today, also found on Wikipedia.

“Narrative is writing rather than just reporting. A reporter gathers information and regurgitates it — sometimes projectile-vomits it — into the computer. A writer arranges the information in a way that draws pictures, evokes tears, holds the reader’s attention. A good writer does this without emotional manipulation and forced phrasing, but like telling a story over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table.”

Words like “regurgitates” and “projectile-vomits” indicates so accurately the differences between writing and reporting. As Dr Steele put it so aptly, “mainstream reporting is predictable, expected, and boring”.

The three words resonated so powerfully with me. My contention is that most mainstream quote only main government officials and authorities, completely ignoring the voices of the ground level. What they say, is always be predictable. For instance, during the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence, would you experience your wildest surprise to hear ministers saying “Malaysia is united, bla, bla bla“, or something that has the “we’ve come a long way” meaning in their every utterance? Or would it be unexpected if the government express urgency that they want immediate action and inspection on all buildings everytime a building collapsed? I think not.

In my humble opinion, this is an insult to the intelligence and credibility of the ordinary people. It undermines our ability to make inform judgement of what is happening around the country. it questions our integrity. The blatant way the media quote the ministers or people with “credibility” is as if they are the smartest in the country, which might not be the case.

Narrative journalism empowers journalist to gain voices from the ground level, because it tells stories, stories of those involved or are key characters in any given issues. For instance, in an issue about education inequality, the key person is definitely not the Minister of Education, because what will be said would be something like, “Yes, we know there are problems like this… we remain committed to improve the situation…In the recent budget, there have been extra allocations on education…”, which is unsurprisingly predictable even without my crystal ball.

Maybe the head of an NGO would be a good one, but I reckon the most compelling key person is often the student or the victim of education inequality. However, narrative journalism does not mean it is a fictional story. The stories must be factually accurate.

Adds Wikipedia, some critical elements of narrative journalism include the following:

• It contains accurate, well-researched information, and is also interesting to read.

• It looks at intriguing people, human emotions, and real situations. It provides the private story behind the public story.

• It reaches past the ordinary by blending the reportage of facts with the writing style of fiction.

Here is one exquisite example of narrative journalism. This is a short excerpt of an article appearing in The Washington Post on March 31, 2003, written by Anthony Shadid. For full article, visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55252-2003Mar30?language=printer

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A Boy Who Was ‘Like a Flower’

BAGHDAD, March 30 — On a cold, concrete slab, a mosque caretaker washed the body of 14-year-old Arkan Daif for the last time.

With a cotton swab dipped in water, he ran his hand across Daif’s olive corpse, dead for three hours but still glowing with life. He blotted the rose-red shrapnel wounds on the soft skin of Daif’s right arm and right ankle with the poise of practice. Then he scrubbed his face scabbed with blood, left by a cavity torn in the back of Daif’s skull.

The men in the Imam Ali mosque stood somberly waiting to bury a boy who, in the words of his father, was “like a flower.” Haider Kathim, the caretaker, asked: “What’s the sin of the children? What have they done?”

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This is a news report on the Iraq war. A 14-year-old boy with the name Arkan Daif died in a sudden bombing. Notice how it was done without a trace of the usual mundane “inverted pyramid” news reporting style. It does not contain all the who, where, how, why, what, when in the first paragraph.

It certainly does not start of with “BAGHDAD, March 30 — A 14-year-old boy was among the many victims of a sudden air bombing in Baghdad late yesterday….” This sounded utterly boring and hackneyed that we really do not pay attention to it anymore.

On the contrary, a beginning that sounded like this “On a cold, concrete slab, a mosque caretaker washed the body of 14-year-old Arkan Daif for the last time.” intrigued the readers, sustains the attention of the reader, ignite emotions, and create lasting impression.

In Malaysia, news are often cliched, carrying the same old writing style. An article appearing in The Star yesterday reads “It is time for Malaysian to re-look at their “rice bowls”, XXX said.” That alone is a total turn-off for me.

And like, why do I have a sense of Deja-Vu? Didn’t this happen, like, last month?

It is time to embrace narrative journalism.
It is time for the voices to return to ground level.
It is time to uphold the principles of democracy (if we haven’t done that already)

It does not matter what “they” say, what matters is what we at the ground say.

The Exuberance of Working with Non-Profits

In my first foray into the local NGO scene, I was lucky enough to have found the serendipity and blessed enough to have discover the beginner’s luck.

To put it simply, it has been a rewarding and fulfilling experience that possibly made the NGO experience highly addictive to me, for the rest of my life.

It is of great pleasure to be able to work with Y4C. Y4C, short for Youth for Change, is a newcomer in the Malaysian NGO scene, yet the quality of the programs organized has never been a reflection of their inexperience. In just one year, they managed to build up remarkable connections with other NGOs in Malaysia, gathered a massive volunteer base, and most importantly, organized activities that have never been done before by other NGOs. The latter played a pivotal role in getting me to sign up as a volunteer.

During the recent by-election in some places in other states, they organized trips to the locations of the election. They ran into trouble with a political party affiliated with the ruling party, who thought they were some opposition groups and subsequently stalked them to monitor their every actions. It takes lots of audacity to be at that position, I reckoned, but they managed to stay together and get back safely. This is exactly what makes civil society movement so exciting – the defiance that you get to display, together with like-minded people around the country.

I did not have the time to go on the trip, plus I was rather afraid of things back then. But that incident inspires me a lot. A friend of mine claimed that the trip was indeed an “eye-opening” experience, opening her eyes to the true state of “democracy” of the country.

The first project that I worked on is the Young Voter’s Campaign. It was organized based on the premise that more than 4.9 million Malaysians above the age of 21 are not registered as a voter in the country, most of whom are young people congregated around urban areas like the Klang Valley.

I knew I wanted to do this. The alarming figure will consequently bring another dimension to electoral unfairness. That is, the true voices might not be reflected in the electoral results in this so-called democratic country.

Malaysians generally have a lot to complain. Traffic jams, rotten education system, racial discrimination, social inequality, poor public transportation system, corruption, lack of transparency, poor public delivery service, and of course denial of basic/fundamental human rights allocated under the Federal Constitution. The problem? These people however, never show their resentment through the cross on their ballot paper, or at least do not see the need to do so due to the general perception that the ruling party will always win ( through various means of course, like the control on media and the election commission, the mobilization of government’s machinery, huge campaigning budget (read: tax payer’s money), and of course, a never ending list of ( ) promises [never mind the EMPTY bracket].)

The next thing I know is, I wrote a little write-up about myself, and was called to their meeting subsequently.

I was overwhelmed with the familiar nervous disposition I used to have when I first joined the team because of the same ol‘ reason: I was afraid of what it could mean if I voice my opinions and give my ideas. I really do.

I was a little perturbed by virtue of my (not very young, but relatively young) age and my lack of experience. Being the youngest person to participate in this activity, the worse things that could happen is when people dismiss you as being young and think you should be hanging out at Friendster or My Space or playing (insert name of latest computer games) instead of doing this.

Nevertheless and thankfully, things turn out to be totally different and I instead get the nicest people that I’ve ever met to take me really seriously, who clearly displayed and conveyed through their every actions and behaviors, that every idea is equally important, regardless of your age and experience.

That itself made me stay on. It is also great for me to see people who are so passionate about civil society movement, coming together and making sacrifices and commitment to champion the cause that they really felt strongly for. What I see is the purest and most genuine form of passion and motivation, because money is completely out of the picture (since it is plain volunteering). While I am glad to meet such people, I am even more excited to know that there are so many passionate people in the country championing for various noble causes – perhaps a spark of hope for a better country in future?

I too am intrigued that meetings are really, really productive. And by saying that, I am saying there are sheer effectiveness in the conduct of these meetings, where there will surely be results or some form of finalization, unlike in situation where there could possibly be no outcome after a few hours of being in the boardroom in the corporate world.

It also occur to me that the NGO movement in Malaysia is like an interconnected huge “underground” web where everyone is so united, so together and seem to know each other. Throughout my involvement with Y4C, I met people from Bar Council, film director, columnist, people from CIJ, AWAM, Suaram and other NGOs, as well as some political figures, something that I wouldn’t imagine would happen to me few months before. Thanks to Y4C.

Meeting new people has always been my passion, especially meeting like-minded and more matured people. I benefited a lot through my meeting with other volunteers. Jien Sing, for example gave me a lot of info about American universities. He went to University of California Berkeley, one of the elite schools in US and the world. These information are extremely crucial for me to know since I will be applying to US schools end of this year. Joyce Tagal, the expert in US application is also someone I am utterly thrilled to meet. I’ve read her blog for a very long time but have never met her or seen her. Not forgetting wonderful people who made my life more enriching. People like Lai Ming, Su-Ann, Roseline, Regina, Patrick, and other wonderful people are really fun to have as a friend. I have also finally spoken to Tony Pua. I previously have seen him and had emailed him but never spoke to him in person before. Not forgetting people like Khai Loon and Yee Ling who’d gave me many learning opportunities and taught me many things.

My most critical contribution to the team and ultimately to the cause, albeit it was rather insignificant, is doing copywriting work in the project. Rudimentarily, my responsibility is to write a leaflet to educate the public about voting right.

The challenge? To make things comprehensible for the general public.

The leaflet team met up during weekends, write lots of drafts, discussed, send emails, show friends to proof read, etc, etc. The leaflet is there to inform the public about their rights, and more importantly, what should they be taking into consideration when putting that crucial cross on that ballot.

Of course, we can’t say things like, “Article XX of the federal constitution states that every citizen must vote….”. That itself is a total turn off. I did read the constitution, and mind you, it is an agonizing process. Reading the Malaysian constitution is the last thing in mind for the general public. Upon much deliberation, we’ve come up with 7 different issues that we believe the public should take into account when making the political decision. They are: freedom of press, freedom of association, embracing diversity, separation of power, government transparency, competent governance, and most importantly, fair election.

Bearing in mind that we can’t write things like “Freedom of press is allocated under Article 10 of the Constitution of Malaysia. In Reporters Without Borders’ annual Press Freedom index, Malaysia ranked…..”, and that nobody wants to read something that sounds like a legal statement, convoluted with jargon and terms that aren’t that accessible to the general public, we finally reached a note of concordance to firstly tell people what are their rights with respect to each of the 7 issues outlined in a fairly simple way.

For “Freedom of Press” for instance, we said, “A free press is like your eyes and mouth……You are intelligent enough to judge for yourself… You don’t need someone else to censor …..” Basically, we used highly anecdotal and relevant context in order to convey our thoughts effectively.

After knowing their fundamental rights and what they are entitled to, we then tell them the consequences of voting blindly without caring for the particular issue. Lastly, we illustrate the benefit that the people will get if they care and are concerned.

Just some example, for the “Competent Governance” part, we have this:

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Competent governance
A competent government strives for progress and an open and just society. A competent government is also efficient and able to please the people. And you are entitled to that.

If you don’t care…

• You might need to wait for a long time to get your passport done – you might miss your flight!
• You will not be able to speak up even when you feel you need to – that is like taping your mouth with tapes.
• You might be discriminated through government policies because you are of Race X or Gender Y or Sexuality Z

If you care…

· Everything is done efficiently. This improves the competitiveness of Malaysians. – And you don’t have to miss your flight

· You can tell the government what you think and provide them constructive feedback to improve – they will take your interests into account to provide you with what you want (that’s reliable public transport, fair education system, livable environment etc)

· Everyone is treated equally, it is a fair and just society

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One of my biggest personal accomplishments is to overcome my personal fear – the fear of going out to the street and talk to people/distribute stuffs in outreaching activities. The notion of outreach programs in this campaign left me in uttershock. Questions started popping out. I was really not receptive to the idea of talking to random people on the street.

People would probably think I have lost my sanity. The worst thing is of course, being treated rudely by some people. I guess I was too into my youthful idealism that Malaysians are friendly (which is not really the case) and so naively believed that everyone is as nice as how I treated people. Sigh, what has befallen mankind…

Far from my sluggish beginning, I am now proud to say I have managed to overcome that street phobia. I have learned to stay true to myself and be indifferent to what others might think about me. I have come to learn to take pride in whatever I do. Whether or not people think I am being jerk for talking to people whom I do not know is totally another issue.

There are situations where I was ignored completely, and there are situations where I was thought to be some bogeyman or salesperson. A friend of mine, who also volunteered, said something very enlightening. He advised everyone that we (volunteers) should not bear reservations on the fear of altering our own “friendly Malaysians perception”, but instead should open up our eyes to see the real world.

That itself is insightful, and perhaps is the reason behind my determination on doing this till the end of it, apart from opening my eyes to see for myself the true reality of the Malaysian way of life. Of course, some people are kind enough to listen to you. Some offered to help! Some gives constructive feedback, some teases their friends for not voting! Anyhow, as I am writing this now (two months after the outreach activities), I reckoned it was not a bad thing either. It actually indicates the diversity of the human race, the various behaviors and attitudes of people. That diversity shapes the world like it is today, add sugar and spices to our everyday lives.

Throughout my volunteering period, I had on several times went on to the activities without informing my dad about it. Uh-oh. (Insert horror theme from X-files with the sound of lightning strike)

Yes, I know, that is not a very good son of me (for not telling him about it). If I did, he probably (like he did before) exaggerate and tell me things like getting arrested, as if all people who work with NGOs will be arrested. This undermines my ability to make informed judgment of what is happening in the “real” world. I felt offended. This is also the reason why people are reluctant to join NGOs – the fear of getting arrested following the introduction of oppressive laws introduced by the government.

I am clearly aware of how people get arrested and how the ISA and other “draconian” laws work. Event like the Young Voter’s Campaign is neutral, non-bias, and has educational purposes (in fact, taking over the educational role from the authorities who seemed to prefer people to not vote in general election). I personally do not foresee any trouble with the authorities by involving with it.

Moving forward, I do not think I will stop doing what I did, even though it did not augur well with my dad. After all, my life is all about myself. I am in charge of making decision for myself, not he making decision for me. Furthermore, the cause that I champion for is too great for me to rest in the laurels and merely hope things will happen itself in the country.

What’s next?

Be on a constant lookout for opportunities to champion for greater cause and issues that I felt strongly for.

A Jazzy Affair

What converged today was fun, excitement, inspiration, and all that jazz.

After a prolonged wait and a series of negotiation with the parents who lamented my uncontrolled expenditure to learn music, coupled with some minutes counting, my earnest dream of an apprenticeship under a famous jazz pianist finally turned reality today.

Jazz is a genre like no other, a genre soothing enough to mend broken hearts and bring serenity to life, a genre free enough to allow its players to play whatever they feel without having to adhere to the complex rules of theory of music, the genre that has the groove that makes you wanna snap your finger at the 2nd and 4th beat. Undoubtedly, my favourite genre of all time.

My fantasy of course, is to be able to play my favourite jazz tune of all time, “Autumn Leaves” as good as, if not better than jazz pianist Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson in one-months time. Absolutely unrealistic, which is really why I am starting my apprenticeship now albeit I am really really busy recently.

Meeting Mr Alex Tan was really exciting. He studied at Monash University. That was what he claimed at first. Some time later, I asked him where he studied (again), and he replied ICOM (International College of Music), which makes things contradictory. But no big deal though.

And so, he started the interrogation part, asking me on my music background. Before I knew it, I started telling him lots of stuffs, digressing in between, asking lots of questions, and so on. After completing the very first lesson, there is a sense of guilt of talking too much, much more that the teacher.

Amid the uncontrolled babbling, I accidentally (actually, intentionally) leaked out the fact that “Autumn Leaves” is my favourite song (in hope that he will teach me how to play it). I was then asked to play it on the piano for him to do some assessment on what kind of jazz level I belonged to at the moment. I played a little, but wasn’t remarkable. Partially due to some reservations on what it could mean if he discovered that I play with the wrong self-learn jazz technique all the while, partially due to my paucity of predilection for the piano I am playing on, which is really deep in its tone intrinsically, which in turn makes it difficult to fully gain control of the dynamics of the song that I was playing. It sounds more like I am trying to find some justifiable excuses to downplay my mediocre jazz improvisation techniques, pretty much like what the fox would say in the sour grape story.

Next comes test number 2. I was asked to play a set of chord progressions spontaneously, and the chords are not written in a notation form, but in the form of Roman letters, like F maj 7, etc. Here comes by biggest blow. I have not learn anything about these Roman letters and how they should play. So in this situation, like any other amateur pianist, I found myself cruising through the chord progressions with sweaty palms and forehead, like cruising through an ocean of starving sharks. Even now when I am writing this down, I still dread thinking how I did at that time.

Next, he opened up his book of probably 300 pages thick. And miraculously he flipped open the page that contains the song “Autumn Leaves”. (Insert the jazzy tune of sheer excitement). And of course, the whole aim of bring up the “Autumn Leaves” issue had accomplished. There was even an assurance that this song will be the first song that he will teach me.

That was also the first encounter I had with a real Jazz music score. What was unexpected was the simplicity of the score. The notes are written at its basic/core form, together with some chords written in the form of Roman letters, which explained why he tested me on that earlier. The idea is to create a whole new realm of ample freedom. What the jazz pianist will do is the improvisation, that adds more colours and energy into a simple dull piece of music using their creativity.

Finally, he gave me some “homework” where I have to play all major scales with the 7th note, together with the multiple inversion scales practice. I have always expect scales to be part of Jazz, especially improvisation. The intriguing thing is that he took 6 months to master all skills, apparently, which corroborates the fact that my unrealistic fantasy of playing “Autumn Leaves” in a month’s time is truly,well, unrealistic.

In the meantime, I shall practice hard and surprise him further. Playing in one-month’s time might be unrealistic, but at least with practice I am able to go closer to reality in a shorter period of time.

For now, the whole jazzy affair is all about jazz scales, really tedious jazz scales.

But the long-term result will be astonishing, I hope.