The Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships experience, one year on.

It was about this time last year that I had just begun settling in to life in the US. We Fellows had been in our newsrooms for a month and a half and were preparing to go for our mid-term seminar in Florida.

We were all relatively comfortable in our new environments, some more than others. We had all begun getting ideas and thoughts about things we could change in our newsrooms back home. These ideas would germinate and congeal as the months wore on. Some of the more gung-ho ones - meaning, Rodrigo and me - even went to the extent of interviewing the top editors in several leading publications in the country to pick their brain and find out what they were doing to survive in the brave new world of New Media.

A lot of our musings and ideas were put down in paper as the Fellowship drew to a close in Septembar. I recently revisited the AFPF website and read the reflections of the 2009 Fellows. Some thoughts were instructive, some were poignant and some were indicative of how similar the issues facing journalism are, despite the vast distances that separate us.

Most were, unsurprisingly, focussed on the need for better and wider multimedia coverage. Ethical issues like the importance of quotes also featured prominently. Another popular topic was the need for more communication and interaction between editors, reporters, photographers, multimedia folk, graphic designers, copy-editors, etc.

Looking back at our reports, at our hopes and our expectations, I wonder how many of us actually managed to put what we learned to any use at all. I know for a fact that I hit a big and painful brick wall when I tried to pitch my many ideas to my former newspaper.

I also know that four out of the nine of us left the companies we worked for in a matter of months after returning. Sherine, from Egypt, went to Reuters almost immediately after returning. Rodney, from Uganda, applied for, and received, a scholarship to study in the United States. Huyen applied to further her studies in broadcast journalism. I, having become jaded and bitter at how things had gone downhill for me at NST since I returned, left to join a TV station.

But at that point, not many of us knew what the future had in store for us. All we had were our hopes, our dreams and our expectations of what we were going to do when we returned.

Here are some excerpts from the Reflections of the Class of 2009.



Shahzada Irfan Ahmed
The News International
Lahore, Pakistan
Hosted by The Houston Chronicle



I was never over-ambitious and knew from the very beginning that it’s hard to fully replicate the working models of U.S. newsrooms in Pakistan. Because our newspapers are not that resourceful, and even if they are, the will to spend on the development of human resources and the improvement of the working environment is almost extinct.

It is not an exaggeration if I say the facilities available to a fresh reporter in the U.S. are still a distant dream for a typical Pakistani editor, nearing his or her retirement. Here I mean the facilities required for the performance of one’s professional duties and not one’s personal belongings.

I would quote just one example to explain how pathetic the situation in some cases is. A journalist from a national Urdu daily told me how his editor had rejected his application for the approval of his mobile phone allowance. He was asked to make friends with some officers in the civil secretariat and use their phones to stay connected to the office.

This poor guy can receive a missed call on his mobile from his office anytime, forcing him to abandon whatever he is doing, and run around to find a free calling facility. This way the editor and the reporter are both saving the organization some precious pennies.

The situation is not as bad everywhere, but there is no question that one can suggest to the bosses to share their funds with staffers to pay for their travel with dignitaries, lunches and dinners with their sources, and the purchase of reference books or research material.

I remember going to meet a city council member with a Houston Chronicle reporter for lunch. The venue was a popular restaurant known for its “mouth-watering” and “finger-lickin’-good” South Asian food. We had not even properly rested ourselves in our seats, or exchanged any niceties, when this reporter announced that he would foot the bill. The council member was adamant that he would pay for the food, but the reporter refused the offer and, politely, threatened to leave the place if he was not allowed to do that. Later, he told me that the newspaper pays all the work-related costs incurred by staffers for food, air-travel, lodging etc.

If I ask my bosses to adopt this practice, I am sure I’ll right away be referred to a psychiatrist for a mental checkup.

Therefore, I will focus on those values and traits of American journalism that can be adopted in my organization, without much dependence on the finance department.

To start with, I would like to see my reporters and editors get rid of their obsession with the worn-out and decayed inverted pyramid style of news writing.

The newspaper content, however dull it was, would sell when there was no Internet or independent private TV channels. Now, the only way the print edition can survive is through innovation in reporting as well by writing style and value-addition to the content.

Today, news is no secret, and many times the readers have heard it before it reaches a reporter. If the print journalists simply provide the transcript of what TV channels are saying, no one would be interested in it. I have learnt in my host newsroom that the content should be catchy enough to attract readers and to get them hooked.

Another thing that I have learnt in my newsroom is that journalists must write primarily for their readers. I am not stating the obvious; my point is that many journalists write about big names only. They have no place for the ordinary people, to whom the readers relate more easily.

Journalism is rightly called “the first rough draft of history.” If journalists behave like court historians and only record the boastful accounts of rulers and the influential elite, the history written tomorrow will be devoid of its beauty. There would be no mention of the masses, their culture and lifestyle, real-life stories of sacrifice, resilience and righteousness, and other narratives that describe a society.

The problem with many Pakistani journalists is they think they can become big overnight, by rubbing shoulders with those in power. There are very few who focus their lens on the have-nots. I would convince my bosses to spare more space for stories about people and shrink the expansive political coverage.


Sherine El Madany
The Daily News Egypt
Cairo, Egypt
Hosted by the Los Angeles Times


In today’s digital age, the Internet has taken charge, and it is not enough for a print journalist to only use the notebook. Today’s print journalist needs to support text stories with audio, video and other graphic materials.

At both the Poynter Institute and the LA Times, I have learned that multimedia tools complement the text version of the story rather than a stand alone version. The key question is to decide which medium makes the text story better. Is it audio, video, sound bytes, informational graphs or a mix of these? If the medium does not make the text version better, then don’t use it.

Jaideep Hardikar
The Daily News and Analysis
Nagpur, India
Hosted by the Sun-Sentinel



Writing with one’s readers in mind.
Time and again, copy editors wrote back to me asking to clarify and simplify sentences. Old hawks in senior positions act as filters – they help you re-write stories; simplify complex sentences and re-check facts. What do you mean by this? Do we need to say this? Are you sure? -- Common questions at work. Quotes and attributions are sacrosanct. You can’t mess around with those. This is basic, but we most often overlook this. It’ll be my regular practice henceforth, something that I’ll strive for and advocate in my own journalistic circle. It has to become a habit.

Frank discussions.
I loved the practice of open ‘budget’ discussions at The Missourian, the campus newspaper of the J-School at Columbia. TheSun-Sentinel and other newspapers in the U.S. do not follow this practice, but they have their own ways to engage in frank discussions about a story. They follow a more formal way. Sometimes reporters meet with their editors or colleagues over lunch or coffee to discuss stories and find out ways to refine their ideas. The Sun-Sentinel also has a writers’ group.

Reporters and editors meet twice a month in a conference hall, eat good food and discuss old stories. The convener sends stories to be discussed with a note: good lead, strong endings or powerful narratives. Many other newspapers in the U.S. have similar internal groups. I am recommending one for DNA. As soon as I return, I will also be forming one in my home town inviting journalist friends from different newspapers for brainstorming sessions. It is a break from the routine and an opportunity to do something creative.

Effective story-telling with multi-media.
The Sun-Sentinel is leading an experiment of an integrated newsroom – print, online and television. While the print remains its main product, the newsroom now has a strong online content and a morning television show. Programs like sound-slides enhance the online story telling abilities. It’s a new skill that I learned hands-on working alongside a photojournalist at the Sun-Sentinel. It’s an effective tool that my home newspaper could think of adopting for its online edition.


Rodney Muhumuza
Daily Monitor
Kampala, Uganda
Hosted by The Kansas City Star


The Monitor has to start valuing feedback in ways it has never done before. I wrote on my blog, madeinuganda.blogspot.com, that it was wrong for a newspaper that’s not even 20 years old to be aloof to feedback. “In Uganda, where state tyranny over the media is sometimes taken for granted, reporters know they are doing a good job when the state comes down hard on them,” I wrote. “It has become one crucial, if painful, way of measuring influence, yet one that ultimately shows a blithe disregard for what the ordinary Ugandan thinks. If we are as good as we think we are, our journalism should not merely aspire to draw the wrath of angry dictators. Above all, it should get the local people, the silent ones, talking.”




Rodrigo Muzell
Zero Hora
Porto Alegre, Brazil
Hosted by The Philadelphia Inquirer



The major learning was how to plan a story. Being a foreigner led me to develop a better way to do this. Let me give you an example from my first story. My mentor gave me a tip about a big line of people near a subway station where free food was distributed every Tuesday. He gave me a handout with the name of the group that distributes the food. In the past I would just call the guys and go there. But since I didn’t know anything about the city, I had to research the group to see if there were previous stories about them. I talked to the poverty reporter here and got some background about food stamps and food banks. Then I had to research the food banks and to learn what they exactly do and how they are organized. I did all of it before going to the streets to interview people.

Just to have a clue about any issue demanded a lot of research, and I figured that this effort resulted in more contextualized stories. Instead of a telling only about the group that distributes the food and people who receive it, the story explains what’s happening with the food banks that use groups like that to help people.

In May, I attended the Investigative Reporting and Editors Conference in Baltimore. There, I talked to seasoned reporters about their techniques, got other tips at the panels and slowly figured out my own way to organize a story idea. Planning it from the beginning allowed me to work on a bigger story later on about recycling. I talked to over 15 sources, and here’s the method I’m using now. I am using the recycling story as an example.
1) Research the clips: The general idea was to see what’s being done in recycling here. I looked at Inquirer stories about it since 2005. In the last published story, it was reported the city had set up a recycling goal for 2009.
2) Researching the internet. At city’s website, I learned that Philadelphia had achieved the goal, and that The Inquirer hadn’t reported it.
3) Finding a focus. I decided to explain what this goal means to the city. I defined two major lines of research: the economy of recycling (it saves taxpayers money) and the importance of it for the environment. I knew I would have to find citizens to tell me their doubts about it and how important the matter is to them.
4) Talking to the editor. After all that work, I pitched the story to the editors. I had the increased rate to tell them, which was enough to justify the story, and I told them what I wanted to do. The editor had some doubts about the subject, so we discussed what sources I should use and questions I should answer for the reader.
5) Get to the sources. From there, it is a regular reporter’s work.

This is an example of how the planning can be effective for a writer. But it is also extremely important to get things done in the newsroom. Since you will more and more to depend on a lot of your colleagues to make your stories better online, you need to have a well-shaped idea to begin with. You have to approach the graphic designer, or the photo editor, or the multimedia desk with something clear in your mind. They rely on you to tell them how the story is going to be written.


Huyen Vu
The Guide
Hanoi, Vietnam
Hosted by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



For me democracy was right there, in the newsroom, where editors were not some supernatural power who were entitled to make a mess of my stories and get away with it. It happened more than once when my editors edited me and got me wrong. But there they were, all ears to my complaints and explanations. The result was that together we made more accurate, more readable stories. From my editors I had learned to keep my stories coherent, to try to make every detail relevant, to get every word to mean something. More often than not, the stories were kicked between my editors many times before they finally made it into the paper.

An interesting thing I discovered there was the editors are able to apologize if they make a mistake. And I had learned that almost any problem can be resolved by talking about it. I’ve gotten to really believe in the power of explanation and discussion.

Myoung Hoon Suh
Money Today
Seoul, South Korea
Hosted by the Los Angeles Business Journal



Multimedia
What I cherish most and would like to share first and foremost with my colleagues is my experience with multimedia. In Korea, IT has developed to a stage where free DMB technology is enjoyed by the majority through their mobile phones. Ages before Facebook made its debut, Koreans were already uploading photos on their own CyWorld homepages. (This may be the reason Koreans call Facebook America's version of CyWorld.)

America's use of multimedia by a print media company lags far behind Korea's. For the most part, there's only an accompanying photo or a video link to an article. But in a word, what I saw of multimedia use at American print media companies while I was at the Poynter Institute was, shocking. It was not only a matter of 'copying and pasting' a photo or a graphic, but a whole host of multimedia platforms in use, including photo slides, interactive graphics, just to name a couple. I would like to let my colleagues know the enormous benefits that can be realized when the use of multimedia is employed well with an article.


At The Missourian
What was most interesting at The Missourian was learning about 'Citizen Journalism'. It was new and refreshing to see coverage of next door neighbors and ordinary people gracing the front pages of the paper. Most of the people who I have interviewed in my career are very successful and recognized both far and wide. The centerpiece of the articles focused on their successes and what tests and hardships were overcome to reach these successes.

But the stories in The Missourian were about people one would easily meet on the street. It was a way of getting to know what was occupying their minds right here, right now. But it turned out that what was on their minds was usually not only about them and them alone. Everything they had to say was relevant to others in one way or another, and the reporters at The Missourian sought questions to produce quotes with the widest possible relevance. I was ultimately reading articles that addressed ideas and opinions held by many.
All reporters constantly concern themselves with relevance and the value of information when writing articles. But cases abound where the blanks are sought to be filled only after setting an article's angle and parameters. At least that is how it seemed to me. That may be because I learned that it was only then that a more detailed article could be written.


Zhiming “Diego” Xin
China Daily
Beijing, China
Hosted by the Saint Paul Pioneer Press



If there’s any skill I’ve learned, I would say I had some practice doing business stories and making them more like features. In the limited number of stories I’ve done for my host newspaper, the most impressive thing for me is my relentless effort to make my story different from news releases.

The most challenging of it is to produce an enticing lead. I have not done that successfully (I’ve usually spent most of the time figuring out a good lead; it’s much easier to complete the other parts), but I’ve read numerous of my colleague’s headlines, such as in the September 17th St. Paul Pioneer Press, in which Richard Chin used the lead: “The Constitution is never far from Chuck Samuelson’s heart.” He used a pun to indicate the fact that many people not only keep a small book of Constitution in their breast pocket, but also keep the ideals of Constitution in their heart.

Using a pun requires much linguistic skill and wit, something not all writers could accomplish. But there are other easier ways to make our stories more readable, such as starting them by relating someone’s personal story. As always, it’s easy to find and memorize tips on how to write business stories as features, but it’s hard to carry them out in real writing practice. It takes time, energy and persistence to improve in that direction.

Another thing I’ve learned from my host newspaper is the combined use of multimedia and print and the cooperation between the print and the online sections to cater to the readership. For example, when something significant cropped up, the writers would first write a short piece for the website before digging deeper to write a story for the print edition. While my host newspaper doesn’t make many multimedia videos, sometimes it put Youtube clips on their website, such as the one on a September 14 emergency landing of a German plane with landing gear problems. Of course, the editors must be very careful to abide by the intellectual property rights and rules and make sure not to pick up the wrong video.

Reporters and editors do make mistakes, however which I learned during my fellowship in the US. On July 5, China’s Xinjiang saw a brutal mass killing tragedy, in which more than 100 ordinary Han people were killed by a local minority group. The US newspapers reacted enthusiastically and promptly to cover the event. Their reporters interviewed extensively the local minority group, related in detail how they were treated “unfairly” in the past, and how “peaceful” they were this time, without mentioning the fact that they brutally killed more than 100 people in their “peaceful demonstrations”! They did mention the number of deaths, but in a way as if those dead were all from the minority group crushed by the Chinese government.

Those newspapers also quoted the Chinese government, but it seems they did it simply to have it refuted later by giving more voices to that minority group. They went so far that in a picture shot by Reuters, in which the Reuters caption was “People who were injured during riots …”, a major US newspaper simply changed it to “Uighurs injured at a hospital …”, while the face of the man and his name card on the wall clearly indicate he is a Han Chinese, not a Uighur. The editor could explain it away by saying he/she can’t tell Han Chinese from Uighur Chinese. Then since he/she can’t tell them from each other, why did he/she make the change? I don’t know why the editor of that internationally renowned newspaper made the mistake, but it’s thought-provoking. What they did reminded me of last year’s incident in Tibet in which some western newspapers simply used fake pictures or changed pictures to show the “brutality” of Chinese troops.

I’m very upset, since they are newspapers from which I’m supposed to learn how to do good journalism -- fair, balanced and accurate. Apart from feeling upset, I should learn some lessons from them, too.
1. Never take something for granted. For a long time, thanks to ideological differences, the Chinese government has always been described as “communist” (every English speaker knows what “communism” means). So I guess many journalists simply take it for granted that whatever the Chinese government does, it’s wrong. It’s an easy way of doing journalism, but is it a good way?
2. Try to be balanced, fair and accurate, no matter how different a journalist’s opinion is from the party he/she is going to cover. It takes a lot of time, energy and effort to achieve this. It’s no simple task.

Marc Lourdes
New Straits Times
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Hosted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch



Though blogging has a tremendous following in Malaysia nobody has quite figured out how to make it pay just yet. I may just have an idea to change that.

Malaysia is a small country if compared to the United States. We've only got a population of 27 million people. Our land mass is roughly equal to that of New Mexico. With such a small and dense population, it's inevitable that our newspapers focus mainly on national issues. We do have certain sections devoted to high-density urban areas, but due to a lack of space, large swathes of the land lack close coverage, unlike America, where regional and local papers service even the smallest of communities.

But we do have bureaus scattered throughout the country. What if these bureau reporters were to each set up local blogs and put up reports there? The big stories that have national impact would of course go into the newspaper. But the smaller pieces, the pieces of local interest, but not national, could be blogged about.

What's the big deal about that? After all, aren't there many citizen bloggers out there? And more importantly, how would one make money from this idea? Well, let me answer these questions one-by-one.

1) The main difference between citizen bloggers and journalist bloggers is the ethical and professional gulf between them. Think about it. The reason why bloggers exist is because they address a need. A need that newspapers and journalists haven't addressed. So, why not start addressing the need? I'm convinced that if we can give the people blog content, along with the citizen participation a blog allows, coupled with high journalistic standards and ethics, the readership will follow. Secondly, journalists enjoy something most citizen bloggers don't. They can do this full-time, with the machinery of a big company supporting them. If journalists can't win with the aid of a stacked deck like this, then they really have no business being in the business.

2) So, how does one make money from this? Advertising, of course. How many small businesses out there can afford the high cost of advertising in a newspaper? How many want to advertise on a national platform when all they want is to get their message to the people in their area? With small, concentrated, highly localized blogs, this under-served community can be tapped into and hopefully become a revenue source.

Granted, the money made from each individual blog advertiser would be a mere pittance compared to the huge sums paid for full-page newspaper ads. Still, if things go right, there will be tremendous volume, which will more than compensate for it.

So, that's it. That's my great idea. For it to work though, there needs to be a concentrated effort from all those in the newsroom. We cannot afford to wait for people to catch on to it. There needs to be an advertising blitz to inform local readers about it. I'm thinking flyers tucked into copies of each paper at bureau level, informing readers about the blogs. Add to that a daily page in the newspaper dedicated to promoting the highlights of our web-only content, including the Best of the Blogs. We need to get hits, and we need to shamelessly promote ourselves to do so.

A potential pitfall is the willingness of journalists to actually take on the extra work and responsibility this will entail. I admit that this element baffles me a little. How do you motivate reporters? Through the threat of job losses? Through dangling carrots like individualized performance-related bonuses? Through creating lucrative monthly awards for best bureaus, bureau reporters and bureau blog posts? The methods are many, and I think what it calls for is a combination of all these elements. Straight talk. Tell them what awaits them if they don't change and promise to reward the ones that do. That's what would work for me.


The entire collection of Reflections essays can be accessed here.

Goodbye, St. Louis!

Dreaming of change.

I'm beginning to grudgingly accept that all that psychobabble about dreams is true. About how dreams provide insights into the workings of our subconscious and all that jazz.
I've been having some very vivid dreams lately. They range from idiotically bizarre (playing football in a condominium construction site built in - get this - outer space!) to the poignant (mending bridges with a recently deceased, estranged aunt) to pretty fucking terrifying (can't remember the dream, thank goodness).
The dream I had last night though, is the one that really makes me wonder whether my subconscious mind is trying to tell me what my conscious mind refuses to accept.
This is what I dreamt about.
I'm driving a car up a steep, winding mountain road. On my left is a wall of rock. On my right, a sheer cliff with an endless drop. The road basically corkscrews its way up a mountain. It's dangerous and full of gravel. My car doesn't have traction.
Yet, I'm pressing on, full steam ahead. Tyres screech as they fight for purchase. My heart pounds away in fear as time and again I almost fly off the road.
I'm getting closer and closer to the top and I gun the accelerator even harder. Eventually, the expected happens. I lose control and veer off the cliff.
I plunge down into the murky depths. And I wake up. As I wake up, I realise that my last thought as I'm falling is not one of fear or terror. As I fall, I'm thinking that this was expected. That I knew I would fall from the moment I began the ascent.
That dream sums up my fears and insecurities pretty well actually. Let's face it. I'm doing very well, career-wise. In fact, I think it's fair to say that I've never been in better shape as a journalist.
The problem with that is that every mountain I climb, every small triumph I savour, is replaced by an even bigger mountain, an even greater challenge.
Before I came on the AFPF fellowship, the fear was whether or not I was only a reporter who could cut it in his own backyard. That I wasn't really as good as I imagined myself to be.
Coming here, I proved to myself - as well as to the folk back home - that I may actually be a half-decent journalist. Well and good. But now that I'm going home, it means that I'm going to have to take everything I've learned here, all the stuff that I've picked up and somehow try to apply it to a Malaysian setting.
I've got to go back and be an even better reporter than I am now. After all, that's the entire point of the fellowship, isn't it? The mere thought of it tires and depresses me. Won't there ever be a time when I won't need to prove myself to the world, and more importantly, to myself?
The nagging thought at the back of my mind though, is whether I'm actually doing any good at all. Whether my work is, even in a small way, changing the world.
That's all I want in life. I don't really care about money or fabulous things or whatever. I just want to, corny as it sounds, make the world a better place. Even if it's just one tiny little piece of it. I want to be remembered one day as somebody who made it just a wee bit brighter.
I was listening to Playing For Change's cover of Peter Gabriel's Biko in the car today. The song, about the martyred South African anti-apartheid activist, was one I've been listening to over and over since coming here.
I don't know why, but when I heard it today I got goosebumps all over my skin and tears just sprang to my eyes. I mean, think about how great a person has to be to inspire people to write and sing songs about him? How tremendous must his impact be for folk to still be recalling him more than 30 years after his death?
As a journalist and a writer, I have the opportunity to make an impact too. Most probably not the kind of impact the Steve Bikos or the Mahatma Ghandis of the world. But an impact nevertheless.
The question though is, am I doing so? Or am I so afraid of moving out of that cocoon of financial and career security that I want to challenge and change neither myself nor the world around me? If that's the case, wouldn't it mean that my life has been a wasted life? After all, what good's a life if a person has come into and left the world without making even a little bit of a dent in it? Surely as humans, as the stewards of this realm, we have been entrusted with greater responsibilities?
Even as I ask myself these questions, I know that I know what will happen in the future. I'll go back to Malaysia, surround myself with people, places and things comforting and familiar and slowly but surely slip back into the old routine.
I'll tell myself that all this idealism is not practical, that I'm a poor boy with aging parents and no silver spoon in sight. I'll tell myself that the responsibilities to family and self come before any notions of honour, nobility, glory or martyrdom.
Eventually, I'll euthanise myself into actually believing most if not all of it. And the only place where I'll face the truth is in my dreams.

Notes from St. Louis.

I've always loved books and reading. It's unsurprising then that one of the first things I did when I came here was to enroll in the local library.

It was one of the best moves I made. The library system in St. Louis is wonderful. The books, the CDs, the DVDs, the programmes - they're fantastic and the perfect example of the gulf between a developed country like the United States and a third-world country (I will not call it a developing country until I see signs of development in the mentality of its people) like mine.

The Central Library on Olive Street is a thing of beauty in itself. With it's massive arches, vast marble floors and beautiful stained-glass windows, it has a cathedral-like grandeur that takes my breath away every time I go in.

With all the time I spent in the library, it was inevitable that I would eventually end up writing a story about it.

Fact is, my article on libraries was a labour of love from start to finish. I conceived the idea, wrote the story, took the pictures and got the graphs and statistics. Seeing it published has got to be one of the most satisfying moments of my time here. It's not the biggest story I've ever done, but I just loved this one a lot.

That being said, work recently has been a curious mixture of triumphs and disappointments, of satisfaction and frustration.

The library story was definitely a triumph. The disappouintment was my story on human trafficking, which I was really keen on. Human rights coverage has always been my area of interest and one of my early forays into contact building was with the International Institute in St. Louis. The Post-Dispatch already has a reporter, Doug Moore, working the beat. So, finding an untapped angle and not stepping on his toes was the key. I thought I had managed to do that with the human trafficking story, which was basically about people being brought to the US under false pretexts and being made to work in slave-like conditions.

It was not to be because my contact person at the Institute said the victims were unwilling to be interviewed, even after I offered to not take pictures or use their real names.

I could deal with that. After all, this kind of rejection is part and parcel of every reporter's life. What annoyed me was the unprofessional way in which the person at the Institute handled it. She promised to get back to me after I had gone to see her and discussed the story with her. However, two months and several emails and voicemails later, she still hadn't told me what the situation was one way or the other. I hate being left hanging like that and really expected more. Oh well...

Work on the whole has been good though. I've had stuff to do regularly and that's always good for my mental health.

That being said, I have been getting a little frustrated at the number of parades/fairs/street events I'm asked to cover. Sometimes, it feels like all I'm doing is parades. In the past month alone, I've done stories on Baden Taste, the Corvette caravan and Festival of Nations. It's nice to attend these events, but I'd really like to get a greater diversity of coverage while I'm here. I don't mean I want to be assigned to all the front page stories. What I do mean is that I'd like to not be the "intern" that's given the stories that can't be screwed up.

It's galling also because I've been getting compliments from my editors and colleagues on the quality of my work, which makes it hard to understand why I'm not getting more challenging stuff to do. Well...at least they're receptive to the ideas that I pitch.

However, it is this that I feel is one of the weaknesses in the fellowship. While we have mentors - and I have a great one in Elisa Crouch - it appears that in my case at least, the higher-ups in the newsroom don't really seem to be on board with the fellowship's ideas and ideals.

Don't get me wrong. They're all fantastic people and have really made me feel welcome at the Post-Dispatch. It just seems that they often don't know what to do with me. For the benefit of future fellows, it might be a good idea for the foundation to work with the higher echelons of the company and come up with a work plan based on the fellow's goals.

Fire!!!

My apartment building caught fire yesterday! Since nobody died or got injured - except for the cat which suffered some slight smoke inhalation - I can say what I'd really like to say without sounding like an insensitive twat.

And what I'd really like to say is - how cool is that??? Woo hoo!

This is what happened. Unit 105 usually has a guy, his aunt, his dog and his cat living in it. His aunt, at the time of the fire, had been hospitalised due to depression and thus, wasn't home (a very good think, coz the guy later told me that she was quite old and very heavy.)

So, our friend goes to sleep in the living room and next thing he knows, he wakes up to the sound of roaring flames and the sight of thick smoke.

He grabs his dog and his laptop, looks unsuccessfully for his cat (that much vaunted feline independence ain't so hot now, is it??) and runs out, with only his shorts on. No T-shirt, no shoes. Nothing.

While all this drama is happening, I'm at home, in unit 501. (105:501 - what are the chances?) Usually, I'm at work at that hour - about 4:45 p.m. or so. But today, for the first time, I'm actually working the afternoon from home, due to the fact that my just concluded interview was at a nearby library.

I hear the smoke alarms and pop my head out of my unit. All appears normal. I get back in again and decide that it's a false alarm - which has happened before.

Something tells me then just to go out anyway. So, grumbling and cursing I throw on some clothes, grab my wallet and passport and head out. Still thinking that it's not a real fire, I don't bother bringing my laptop, camera and most importantly, my reporter's notebook.

I take the stairs down and that's when I realise that the building really is on fire. Acrid fumes hit me the moment I reach the third floor. For a moment, everything is black and I feels the stirrings of panic in my guts.

Here's where that fireman training I went for back in Malaysia held me in good stead. Squinting and stuffing my face into my shirt (good thing I wasn't loaded with my camera and laptop), I crouch as low as I can and head for the exit as calmly as possible.

I expect to see pandemonium reigning outside. Instead, what I do see is impressive orderliness on the part of the residents and superb efficiency on the part of the firefighters.

The blaze, which thankfully consumed only one unit, was put out in less than 15 minutes. While debating whether or not to call the Post-Dispatch and tell them about the itty-bitty fire, I get a call from Elie (yes, I grabbed my phone too!) telling me she's covering it and asking if I'm taking pics. I had to disappoint her by saying my camera was stuck upstairs (what kind of reporter leaves behind the tools of his trade when a story literally falls into his lap? So embarassing!)

But, I managed to borrow Elie's notepad and pen and jot down some quick interviews with the guy as well as the fire captain. So, my honour has been regained somewhat.

Oh, and the vic was wearing what I thought was one of those fancy jogging GPS/odometer devices on his ankle. Elie later told me that it's a tracking device for prisoners who are under home arrest. So, now we're speculating that the cause of the fire was a meth-lab accident and not a falling shitty lamp as the guy claimed earlier. Hmmm....

Making crime pay.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks here. There've been quite a few developments, personally and professionally.



My time at the Post-Dispatch is almost coming to an end, with me hardly even realising how quickly time has flown by. All of a sudden, I find myself with barely enough time to do all the things that I wanted to do when I first came here (visit Memphis, Chicago, as well as check out several things in St. Louis itself). And I still haven't even come close to doing any of the souvenir shopping that I need to do! Having so many friends can be a tough proposition sometimes, you know!



The good news is that I have, since the mid-term seminar at Poynter, managed to dispel the feeling of homesickness that used to descend on me every few days. I've finally settled nicely here, made some friends and have started slowly counterfeiting what passes as a social life.

I've started going clubbing (courtesy of the Post-Dispatch, which wants me to do reviews), properly checked out some of the many attractions of Forest Park and even attended a Cardinals baseball game (and it was a cracker of a game too!). Go Cards!



But, I digress. This posting, as we Fellows keep being gently reminded, is about the trials, triumphs and tribulations of the 2009 Alfred Friendly Fellows as we muck about at the newspapers in our host cities.



Since my last posting, I've come up with the aforementioned club reviews, a piece on my Disneyworld experience with Hoon, as well as a story on a fire that killed three children.

Each of these experiences has been an interesting learning experience in itself.



I'm particularly proud of the club reviews, because it contains an innovation (I think!) which I suggested all by myself. Our editor, Evan, asked us to do the review in a conversational form. So, I suggested actually having a Gmail chat session with Sherice, the other reviewer. It's worked very well. Having a real chat session enabled us to have a very natural sounding article written in the dialogue form. It also helped us inject some quirkiness (like me ordering a vodka martini, shaken not stirred) as well as some informality (like asking if a dodgy foreigner can pick up a girl at a club) into the proceedings. Check out the finished product here. Btw, in case you're wondering, the vodka martini gag was for a different review. I'm now considering suggesting a similar club review form - probably called Saturday Nightlife - to my paper back home. I really think it will work out well.


The Disney article , on the other hand, was both an opportunity taken as well as an opportunity missed. It was an opportunity taken because I got off my backside and pitched it to the Features editor, Christy Bertleson - who I have to say, was very supportive. Don't you just love editors like that? What started off just as a lark for Hoon and I became a story which got some interesting feedback from readers. Some people - including one guy who works at Disney and had a half hour long phone conversation with me (phew!) - loved it. Others actually called and told me that I went for the wrong rides and should have done other things in that time. One lady left a message saying that I was an 'amateur' for only being able to do so much in one day. Lol!

It was also educational because I got to see how an editor who thinks outside the box can completely change and improve on a story. You see, my original was a long-form feature which ran up to 1,600 words.



Needless to say, it was too long. However, I was pretty much brain-frozen by the time I had done it and asked Christy to surgically remove anything she felt like removing.



However, instead of doing that, she changed the style of the first few paragraphs, from an actual narrative to a snappy, timeline-based almost point-form article and told me to do the same for the rest of the article. It dramatically reduced the length of the story but retained the style, the humour and the flavour.



That being said, the same article also presented an opportunity missed for me, as in I finally didn't get to insert multimedia elements like I wanted to. I had an idea of doing a picture slideshow, along with audio narration for the website. However - and this is mainly my fault. I dawdled - in the end, there just wasn't enough time for it and it ended up being just a regular text-based article on the website as well. Worse still, for some reason, the picture used in the paper was not put up along with the website's article, making it look rather unimpressive. Oh well...



Finally, I worked on a story about a fire that killed three children. It made the front page (woo hoo!!). It was a tragic story, but very interesting from a professional point of view. You see, in Malaysia, most crime (i include accidents and disasters under crime) stories - unless they're really sensational - rarely make the front page. Most of the time, we just give it the regular, run-of-the-mill treatment and it ends up stuck wherever there is space to stick it in. And most of the time, one reporter is sent out to do the story and he comes back with the essentials.



But, what happened here was this: I was sent to the scene, to interview witnesses, get some atmosphere and wait to see if the surviving members of the family returned to the scene.

Another reporter, Michael Sorkin, remained in the office and worked the phones, calling the police, fire department and other authorities to get the nuts and bolts of the story.



This division of work actually makes a lot of sense. Leaving the reporter on the scene free to get anecdotal information and letting somebody else get official statements means both reporters are free to concentrate on one specific element of the story. Hence, nobody is rushed, nobody is pressured and nobody is overwhelmed. Also, when the two different sides of the story came together, the result was interesting - the officials said the smoke detector was not working, while the residents said it was. And that became the crux of the story.



I've got two projects still in the pipeline. One is about the library system here and I finally got all the interviews done today. I'm hoping this might sneak into page one as well. Fingers crossed! The other, a human trafficking story which I would say is a more likely candidate for front page treatment, seems to have hit the skids, mainly because of a lack of response from certain authorities. Very inconsiderate of them, really! But, I've still got a month and a half to go and will continue bugging them until they either tell me yes, or tell me to bugger off. Watch this space. :)

Flouncing about in Florida.

Going to Florida was always going to be the highlight of my July. Meeting my fellow Fellows, seeing Katie again, checking out sunny Florida - all these prospects had me in a state of high excitement.

I was also actually looking forward to Poynter itself. All my colleagues at the Post-Dispatch had told me what a cool place it was. Former Friendly Fellow Audrey Edwards also said that the mid-term seminar would actually be the point where I would start to see things differently and begin to settle down.

So, it was no great surprise to find out that they were all right. On all counts. Poynter was a really cool place and it was the point where I began to see things in a different light and feel more settled. Which, if you think about it, ain't that great a thing, considering that I'm settling just as I'm beginning to get ready to return. - _ -

The weeks preceeding Poynter were relatively quiet for me. I did a couple of interviews - one a follow up on an earlier story, the other a Q&A with a college student who gave up his studies to volunteer with the American Red Cross in Baghdad.

Going to Poynter, I had a pretty set idea on what I wanted to learn. And multimedia wasn't really high on my list of priorities because my paper back home seemed hell bent on having the world's worst (and ugliest) newspaper website.

In a happy coincidence however, they revamped the site to give it a more streamlined and multimedia intensive look, giving me the impetus to actually learn more about multimedia myself.

And we certainly did learn about multimedia. There was so much information given to us that at times I felt my brain would just go kaboom! Soundslides, Audacity, Audioboo (for my Iphone), Bubbleply and the entire battery of online tools we got from Ellyn Angelotti (though most of them aren't available outside the U.S.) all open up such an array of storytelling possibilities for reporters. I'm still so excited about them!!!

And it wasn't only multimedia. Roy Peter Clark focussed on plain, old-fashioned writing skills and that was just as interesting, challenging and exciting as all the multimedia sessions. After all, no matter what happens, I'll always consider myself a writer first and foremost.

One of the most unexpected things was the heavy focus on training our fellow reporters when we go home. I really enjoyed this part, especially since I do enjoy guiding and mentoring my younger colleagues anyway. To be actually given tools and knowledge to do this better was an enriching experience. To be given these tools by folk as seasoned as Bill Mitchell and Paul Pohler was both humbling and uplifting. Humbling because seeing them in action made me realise how far I had to go if I really want to be a good teacher and mentor. Uplifting because it showed me that these gentlemen, men who'd been there and done that, were still humble, approachable and down-to-earth despite their experience and their achievements.

I took what I thought was a vacation to Disneyworld with Hoon after our Poynter session. However, I - quite cleverly if I do say so myself - managed to sell the idea to my editor. On top of that, I also managed to work in a multimedia slideshow to go with it. Not bad, huh?

I've managed to also get quite a nice gig at work now - doing club reviews. So, essentially, I'm going to be paid to eat, drink and be merry. Not the worst job in the world.

Life's looking good.

My week as a shutterbug.

<---- This is probably my favourite picture ever taken. I love the emotion.

It's been a good couple of weeks at work. The training plan that I worked out with Elisa and Christopher saw me spending a week in the photo desk right after my stint at the editorial desk was over.

I had really been looking forward to this because the new camera had given me photography fever. In a big way. I've been so taken up with it that I spend hours online looking up Steve McCurry pictures (Thanks for pointing out to his website to me Kamsie!), and visit websites that give photography tips.

The craze has gotten so bad that I'm beginning to see the world in terms of pictures! I'd be minding my own business, walking down the street and then I'd see a person, a tree, an animal or even something like a doorway or a window and I'd get immediately excited about how it would look in a picture. Then I'd cuss myself out for not having my camera with me at the time.

<---- This father-son moment at the Central West End Art and Taste Fair brought back memories of my own childhood.

But anyway, back to work. The week spent in photo desk was fascinating, probably the most educational time I've had since coming to the Post-Dispatch.

I covered the Central West End Art and Taste Fair, the Missouri Botanical Gardens' 150th anniversary and adventurer Dan Cook's visit to St. Louis, among others.

<--- I experimented with being arty-farty. Not too bad, if I do say so myself. :)

Some of the pictures were used as slide shows online while others were published in the paper. The week culminated with me being sent for an assignment on my own (the previous ones had me shadowing Elie Gardner). I was assigned to do a portrait of a lady who collects and makes blankets for sick kids in hospitals. The assignment went well and the picture got published a week later.

All in all, I emerged from my week as a photographer with a greater understanding of the technical aspects of photography, such as how aperture, shutter speed, lighting, etc affect the quality of a picture. At the same time, I also managed to develop my 'eye' for a picture better, improving my composition and framing skills.

<---- What's Oscar de la Renta or Versace compared to the beautiful gowns mother nature dresses her children in?

To me, these skills are very important because I want to ultimately become a self-contained journalist who's output will include articles, pictures and multimedia and will need minimal, if any, editing before being ready for the paper or website.

With the added knowledge and increased confidence in my photography skills, I'm just that little bit closer to getting to where I want to be.

Once the photography week was finished, I went back to the newsdesk only to find that Iran was in the throes of its post-election unrest. Christopher suggested I do a story on local Iranians and how they felt about what was going on in their homeland.

Getting the story done was a little tricky, because I didn't have any connections here. I got one contact from fellow reporter Doug Moore, but the guy didn't want to be interviewed. I also tried going to a mosque to see if I could find anybody. The first time, nobody was there. The second time, the only one there was the imam, who said the last time he had been interviewed, the report got skewed, resulting in him losing his job and being interrogated by the CIA. Needless to say, he didn't want to talk.

So, I googled up Iranian restaurants in St. Louis and started from there. I spoke to the owner of the restaurant and once I had interviewed her, asked her for other contacts in the area. From then onwards, it got progressively easier.

Their stories were compelling and I think the editors agreed with me because they decided to out it on the front page. :) One of my stated goals in my fellowship application was that I wanted to get a front page story for the paper I would be working at. Looks like that goal has been achieved a little ahead of time.

And so, as July beckons, I'm working on what has become something of a pet project for me. As always, I'm a little paranoid about giving out details of a story before it's published. But let me say this - the angle is interesting and if the pieces fall into place, it'll be an interesting story and hopefully my second page one. :)

Missouri meets nasi lemak.

I'd promised Elisa and Elie nasi lemak even before I came to St. Louis. No, wait. Let me correct that. I'd tantalised Elie and Elisa with descriptions and pictures of nasi lemak even before I came to St. Louis.

Upon hindsight, it wasn't the smartest thing I've done. Setting the expectations so high was asking for trouble. The pressure that came with cooking the best possible nasi lemak (well, the best nasi lemak a bachelor living in a foreign country can cook anyway!!) had me in a dither for more than a week.

Even organising the dinner wasn't easy! Everybody's schedule seemed to clash and we couldn't seem to find a single night when everybody was free. Somehow, we finally decided on last night and the only casualty was Jeff, Elisa's husband. Those who could make it were Elie, Repps, his wife Stacey and Elisa. Also present was Derrick, the guy who was repairing my computer. But since he was allergic to shrimp and couldn't eat, let's not count him.

So, anyway, I got lucky on Monday, when I found pandan leaves, some decent looking coconut milk, lemongrass and even banana leafs (to line the plates with) for my Malaysian meal. It seemed that I had every single thing I needed to make the dinner a success and I decided on shrimp sambal.

But, the omens didn't look good from the moment I woke up today. I went online early in the morning to read up on background for my assignment today. Then some stupid software update came from my Internet service provider and the bloody thing just lobotomised my entire operating system! Kaput! My whole computer died! Finito! Adios amigo!

I freaked out! My songs (there are 19,000 of them now!), my pictures (God knows how many thousand of them I have!), my videos, my documents, my files....I could see them all disappearing in a puff of smoke in the shape of the Internet explorer logo.

And that was just the beginning. It just went downhill from there. I got lost three or four times on the way to Ballwin (a nearby city) due to highway closures. I reached there only to find that the place I was aiming for was closed. Then I got lost three or four times on the way back. Embarassingly, I ended up in the same place I got lost on Monday when I was shopping for food. So much for the convenience of GPS...

There were other speed bumps during my day as well, and all these led my superstitious heart to believe the nasi lemak dinner was doomed.

In the beginning it seemed like everything was going to be alright. The nuts and anchovies turned out fine (but then again, if I can't even fry the bloody things right, I've got no business attempting nasi lemak!), the eggs were boiled perfectly and the cucumbers were just on the right side of crisp.

<--- (The rice looked absolutely fine BEFORE it was cooked!)

And then came the rice. I had bought the best possible quality of rice and the best possible coconut milk i good find. I estimated how many people would be there and decided that 4 cups of rice would be enough. Which meant 8 cups of milk. Only prob was, that would take everything right up to the brim of the rice cooker.

Against all the alarm bells jangling in my head, I put it to cook, the edges of the milk coming crazily close to overflowing from the cooker. I said a little prayer and left the rice to its own devices while turning and addressing the shrimp.

The shrimp sambal was a little tricky, coz the lime that i used as a tamarind substitute turned out to be too sour. But, nothing I couldn't balance out with a dash of sugar.

I hadn't even finished with the sambal when I heard the pop of the rice cooker button and knew my coconut rice had been shot to shit. One look confirmed it. Instead of a beatiful, moist and rich bed of pearly white grains, I saw glob of crummy-looking, 1/4 cooked crap which was basically inedible.

Btw, Derrick the computer guy was on hand to watch me freaking out.

So, a little McGyver action was called for. I chucked out half the rice (oh how it hurt me to waste the Thai jasmine rice like that!) and put the rest back on to boil and quickly decided that if it got screwed up again I'd just make normal rice.

Thank God, it was okay the second time around. I decided that if that wasn't enough for the gang, I'd just make another batch later.

The next problem was the flies and the smell. The shrimp paste (belacan) I used stank up not only the whole house, but also the whole corridor of the 5th floor and the whole elevator for good measure. The stench attracted a swarm of flies (the first flies I've seen in St. Louis!). Arrghhhh!

Stashing all the food where the smell wouldn't escape, I went on a merry run around the house trying to chase the flies out. Have you ever tried herding flies? Not the easiest exercise around, let me assure you. In fact, I would not be surprised at all to find that I have one hardy soul still clinging on to the edge of my couch or something.

Even more embarassing was that when I was going down to pick up Elisa later, I bumped into one of my neighbours who was bitching about the smell in the place. She said it smelled like "week-old Doritos" or something.

I nodded sympathetically and said, "Thank God my apartment is okay. All I get is the smell of the food I'm cooking." (!!)

Ultimately though, everything turned out fine. The guests at my fancy dinner party (did I mention that everybody had to bring their own chairs coz I didn't have enough?) enjoyed the food, even though Elisa was worried at first about the smell (her exact words were that "it smelled like feet.") In the end, she even packed some home for Jeff, who's a big fan of spicy food (and whose Mexican chilli, which I ate a few weeks ago, actually made me sweat!)

<--- (The final result sure looks good though!!)

And so, I now am looking forward to cooking more for my friends without so much fear of messing up or not doing justice to Malaysia's awesome cuisine.

Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da...life goes on....

The Beast that is Blogging

I've always viewed blogging with equal amounts of trepidation and contempt. Trepidation because it mainly seemed to be a hotbed of malice, spite, bitching and backbiting. Contempt because most of what passes as "news" on blogs is a combination of hearsay, rumours and fairytales.

Yet, it's undeniable that blogging has caught on and irreversibly changed the Internet and the newspaper industry. Publications that at one point turned their noses up at blogging are now desperately trying to get onto the bandwagon, while papers that embraced it are now looking for the next best thing. Most have realised that blogging, coupled with proper journalistic ethics and principles, can be a powerful tool in reaching out to your audience.

One of my main aims when I came to the Post-Dispatch was to explore blogging and online journalism. While it's embarrassing to admit that the New Straits Times is still in the stone age when it comes to our online presence, it does mean that there are a lot of innovations which other papers have successfully implemented which we can cherry-pick from.

And so, these last couple of weeks were notable for the fact that I was stationed at the editorial page desk and churning out at least one editorial blog a day.

The experience has been fun and illuminating, and has raised just as many questions as it has answered.

What have I learnt? Well, mainly, and most importantly perhaps, I've learned to develop a thicker skin. Almost every blog written by the editorial writers, including myself, has been subjected to a barrage of criticism and complaints. This is even in cases where the blog entry is one which is, say, about the necessity of having a helmet law, or the need for stricter control regarding texting in vehicles. What appears to be a matter of safety and common sense for the writer can be a totally different issue for some people and they will vehemently, passionately defend their rights not to wear helmets or to text while driving.

This raises a very interesting question. If much of the blogging receives such a negative response, does that mean the writer is out of touch with the common man? Has he become too highfalutin for his own good? Or does it mean that it's only the crazies and the ones who have something bad to say that respond? Do the ones who agree with the ideas just read the post, nod and move on? For my own sake, I hope it's the latter and not the former. To be out of touch with your audience is to hasten the demise of your career as a journalist, methinks.

However, the blogsphere is amazing because it gives you an interactivity that you've never had before with your audience. Done properly, it can engender great discourse with a great flow of ideas from all sides.

I've experimented with this notion, both in the tone and in the content of my blogs. Unlike the other editorial writers, I am not an expert on any of the subjects debated on in America. As such, the tone of my blogs is that of a person who is seeking answers and asking questions of the audience instead of telling them how a thing is or trying to "educate" them on a certain issue. I've noticed that people seem to respond well to this. Maybe they feel good that their opinions are being sought or that their ideas seem to count to the writer. I don't know. But it is something which I'll seek to delve into more fully when I get back to Malaysia.

Blogs are also useful when you want to gauge what people's sentiments are on a certain matter. For example, I've been curious about the ethical debate surrounding undercover reporting in the US ever since I came here. But, most of the opinions I got were from journalists and pseudo-intellectuals who were dissecting the issue and I wasn't sure how attuned they were to the sentiments of the reading public.

So, I just put the question to the readers and got some pretty candid and revealing answers - which were quite often, totally different from the views of the people who dreamed up this notion of ethics.

Blogging is also as much about new techniques in presentation as it is about new techniques of communication. With blogs, you can include pictures, sounds, links, animations, videos and all manner of multimedia. It's an amazing playground for a journalist as it enables him to exercise his creativity to the fullest. While I haven't had much time to explore a lot about this element of blogging, I have a rudimentary grasp of the basic ideas and fleshing out this skill is on my wish list of things to pick up before I go home.

Tempus Fugit.

My oh my, how time does fly. Caught between settling down in St. Louis and my orgasmic throes of self-pity at being given the chance to experience what most people can only fantasize about, I almost missed the fact that it's been close to 2 months since I came to the United States and a month since I landed in St. Louis.
A lot has happened since then, some good, some bad and some pretty ugly.
Most of what happened in the first two weeks of May have already been addressed in my entry of two weeks ago. Here's what's happened since then.
Most importantly, I got my first few stories and bylines out in the paper. The first was about the Annie Malone parade - the second largest African-American parade in the country. I covered the parade as well as some violent clashes which occurred shortly after it, and which seemed to be a yearly ritual, as one look at the paper's archives showed me. (And by violence, I mean the bust-a-cap-in-yo-ass kind of violence!)
The next day, I assisted reporter Doug Moore to find out why this parade is plague by this kind of unseemly behaviour. My task was to call the CEO of the Annie Malone Center and do a quick phone interview, which I did. The guy was quite defensive, despite me trying to point out to him that the intention of the story wasn't to put any blame on the foundation. But, he wasn't really keen on listening. The good thing though, was that the story generated a huge amount of buzz online! Talk about making a quick impact!
What really took my by surprise though, was that the next day the bugger actually held a press conference to denounce the paper and me specifically for being racist!! He said the only reason we covered the story was coz it was a black parade! Crazy! It amused me and pissed me off in equal measure. Amused me coz I think he thought I was a white boy (another reason to hate my name!!). Pissed me off coz I'm not racist! A line-up of my ex-girlfriends would resemble the bloody United Nations for crying out loud!
So, now I have one angry brother to join the legion of anti-Marc Indians from Malaysia. Great!
My story on an Indian temple project which never took off was also published, and it made the front page of the community section, I'm happy to say. :) That piece too generated quite a bit of buzz.
Unfortunately, things just kinda died off after that. I was asked to do a piece on Sri Lankans in the US after the fall of the Tamil Tigers, but i couldn't manage to find any Sri Lankans in St. Louis.
After that, I had a fantastic Memorial Day weekend in Atlanta with my uncle's family and felt even more depressed to come back to an office where everybody seemed to be working except me.
I began to get pretty depressed and agitated, not having anything to do. You know...idle minds being the devil's playground and all that jazz.
Happily, the week ended on a better note than it began. I had a meeting on Thursday with Elisa and my editor, Christopher Ave. There we thrashed out what my goals for the training would be. They included:
1) Improving my skills in writing columns and editorials
2) Working on investigative journalism
3) Working on photography and video skills
4) Improving my interviewing techniques

Ave and I both immediately got to work. I linked up with investigative reporter Joe Mahr, helping him out on the groundwork of a story he's doing. It gave me a chance to see how useful database management software can be for a data intensive story.
Ave hooked my up with Adam Jadhav, who'll train me on video later this week. He also set me up with the Editorial Desk, where I reported for work today. I'll be here on and off this week, and all of next week. And already I'm having fun. I did a piece today on abortion, which is sure to generate me oodles of hate mail. I doubt they can be any worse than what I received at the height of my infamy, but we'll see...
So, all in all, it's been a topsy-turvy two weeks. And something tells me the rollercoaster ride ain't over yet.

The Atlanta trip.

I went to Atlanta last weekend to visit my uncle. A friend from Malaysia was coincidentally also there to attend a biotech conference. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, I brought them together. It was a great success as they hit it off immediately. We had a lovely time, visiting many places, eating some great home-cooked food, drinking some fine single-malt whiskey and staying up late at night every day to chit-chat. We visited Tallulah Gorge State Park, Lake Acworth, Coca-Cola Museum and Georgia Aquarium, among others. I stupidly forgot to charge my camera for the Coke and Aquarium trips, but here are some of the pictures from the lake and the park. Enjoy!

The photographer, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and eager to get on with the job.

One of the many stunning views of Tallulah Gorge State Park. 

The leaves on the forest floor make such a lovely pattern.

They were soon running for cover. It started raining cats, dogs and horses. 

Presenting Tallulah Gorge State Park..

And to think we Malaysians actually pay money for pine cones during Christmas. 

Wildflowers are planted all along the highway. Too bad I couldn't stop for a proper picture. :(

I just had to take a pic of this fence! Okay, I'll admit it. I had to take MANY pics of this fence!

Lake Acworth was stunning, to put it mildly. 

My new toy.

Well...I finally did it. I went out and blew a shitload of cash on something which I've always wanted for a long time. A really nice camera. To be more exact, a really nice Nikon D60, 10 megapixel machine, with two lenses - a 18-55mm lens and a 55-200mm lens.
Elie, who took me to buy it and acted as my consultant, said that with this purchase, I will not need to buy another camera for years.
Funnily, actually just holding it in my hands gives me greater ideas about taking pictures, including composition, lighting and so many other things which I never even thought about with my old point and click Olympus.
I went on a walkabout at my neighbourhood yesterday and here are the results, along with the mighty machine that made it possible.

The table and bench look so dark and lonely compared to the greenery and brightness outside.

A fountain in front of a Jesuit Church. 
The flower though pale and colourless is nevertheless still beautiful.
I was told that this part of town is colourful, flamboyant and full of murals like this one because it's a gay district. If that's the case, I think we need more gay districts around!

I love how the bicycle melds into the scene so beautifully.

The Angel of Harmony sculpture at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. It's a beautiful piece, and the stuff that makes up its wings are actually chimes.

Another beautiful sculpture/fountain at the cathedral. Elie said the pic would have been better if there was somebody sitting on the bench on the right.

Straub's is the place you'd run to if you're living in the West End and need to urgently buy something for the kitchen. Shop there often though, and you'll find a pretty sizable hole burnt in your pocket.

Purty, purty fountain.

This is the most happening part of the Central West End, where I live. It's the intersection of Euclid and Maryland and this is where all the bars, restaurants and cafes are. A really cool place. Elie and I went for an afternoon mojito at one of the bars here last Saturday! :)

And of course, the thing that's made it all possible...