MARCH 17 — No one wants to see the sausage made. But everyone wants to eat it. In this case, read it. And, oh boy, did they lap it up!
But it wasn’t always the case, in those early years.
As the accolades and eulogies for The Malaysian Insider stream in, and will do so for the foreseeable future, the fondness of the memories turn bitter at the thought of what will be next for the country, as a hush descends while everyone eyes the gathering storm.
For now, today, writing for another news portal, I would rather reminisce how The Malaysian Insider or TMI affected me, the people in and around it and the country. The storm will have to wait its turn.
During the 2008 general election, the scene of the crime for all the volatility today, TMI was an infant and just another online source. Malaysiakini was the indubitable opinion maker outside mainstream news.
As the polling results trickled in, Kini had the reports people wanted but struggled to get as bandwith and inexplicable forces choked the feed.
By the 2013 general election, TMI was one of a pack of alternative media outlets online serving a range of reports, but it cannot be said that any was shaping the conversation as much as them.
Let me be fair. Malaysiakini filled a huge void with news that was never made available since the 1987 media shutdown by Mahathir Mohamad. The country would be far worse without Kini. However Kini, as in the words of its leading editor, was in it for the underdog. There was an air of rebellion to the chokehold on news by the powers that be, and Kini was fighting for the little guy. It gave a fair number of people their voice and recorded the events that were not recorded before.
TMI entered the fray with an interest in news and shaping the national conversation. It was not interested in the outcome per se, it was equally interested in the people affecting the outcome and those living the reality of the outcome.
It was a news portal. And it was free.
That coupled with being a complete one-stop news site rather than just national news gave it a distinctly different appearance. Keen on Parliament, keen on Kanye West’s diatribes, keen on Champions’ League results, keen on news really.
It was at the start of 2009 I joined TMI as a sub-editor. Len Pasqual as chief sub putting up with my antics and strange pants, and patiently guiding me from novice to not novice, I suppose. Which brings the topic of editors overall in charge — and omnipresent in my Google Hangout, then Google Chat — Leslie Lau, Jahabar Sadiq and Joan Lau. The trinity who filled my waking hours for years.
The opinion columnists were varied from the start: Not your typical NGO crowd. Members of Parliament from both sides, technocrats, sports writers and music reviewers in the line-up.
Serving up on all fronts, and never stopping for a breather, TMI kept upping the offerings. Tech, drive, stocks updates, weekend restaurant and book reviews and at the same time having a moderated comment section which the main player did not indulge in initially.
With that the page views bumped upwards. But more importantly, the conversation.
The news trumped everything and back then, in the early years which I can attest to, scepticism was the only altar all submitted to. There was no sycophancy and all national personalities were fair game.
Every big name took a beating and was taken apart with great alacrity in office chats. Being a party member meant PKR stumbles were directed to me with the normal “Whatlah your party, like this also can!”
Another colleague would ask constantly when I will be having my “back to back” meeting with my party leader. While the language can be crude but I suppose it was a reminder to all in the business that the business of the fourth estate was to be outside looking in and being conscious about it.
When the noughties ended, the presence of TMI in national newsmaking was certain.
These are people
While much speculation surrounded the 2013 post general election split, where most of TMI headed over to this portal and left some to re-staff the old unit, I had left a year before the situation and therefore am in no position to comment.
I do want to say this about the people. That despite all the excitement about TMI’s contribution to the national landscape the people behind it were just like other Malaysians, having their own aspirations and fears.
There are inside stories in the Insider, like the senior sub who left for the Middle East but never quite got past Rawang, the colleague whose Michael Jackson affections were met with some nasty gags in black and white, the reporter who went missing after a company night out and found himself late morning in a the parking lot of a mall, the daily search for edible lunch with the grit of those looking for the Holy Grail, the failed World Cup pool and the guy who sings in the elevator and scares other building tenants.
For me personally the strongest memory would be having roti canai at six in the morning, walking up past the UOA Towers’ Nepalese guards to the lifts, opening the empty Insider office, cranking up the rock music while sipping coffee and battling the keyboard to load the stories while humming.
Now, I’m only left with the dream of that Camelot.
Adieu TMI
Revelations of the MRT project award, Sosilawati’s murder, the Perak MB putsch, introducing Jho Low and his travails, personalising the Bersih participation, underlining the contradictions in PKR’s party elections and the list goes on and on.
It never missed a beat elsewhere, following the Arab Spring, the Fukushima disaster post-Tsunami, Deepwater Horizon oil spill debacle, the US$700 billion Congress bailout or even the yellow and red shirts in Thailand.
Eight years is two US presidential terms, and the Malaysia TMI leaves us with is far removed from the one it entered.
While opinions over it will always be divided about its role, especially in the latter years, it has run quite a course.
The opening editorial (by Shaykh Mohd Salim Al Kalali) of the pre-Second World War publication Al Imam in 1906 stands aloft to remind what TMI aspired through the years: “To remind those who are forgetful, arouse those who sleep, guide those who stray and give voice to those who speak with wisdom.”
Thank you, TMI. You will be missed. But more pertinently, your stories live in everyday Malaysians. That’s victory, in news.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
