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

———————————

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?”

———————————

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.