chasing the news
25/02/2010Tried to initiate a discussion on Twitter among several Twitter friends who are enrolled in the same New Media course: “Why can’t the National University of Singapore, with a large pool of well-educated, intelligent, erudite youths, produce an impactful, credible news agency, be it online or in print form?”
One of them suggested that NUS students, like Singaporeans in general, are apathetic and don’t really care enough that their school doesn’t have credible newspapers.
That cuts little ice with me. Sounds to me like a convenient excuse. I see many NUS students eager to step up and volunteer for a cause they deem meaningful. Many also start campaigns with their own free time and see it through. So why not write for a newspaper and do it well?
There’s The Ridge, which comes in print form, once a month; there’s Hooked, which is only in online form and also goes out once a month. Both are affiliated with the Student Union and are “official student publications”.
For more “independent” voices that do not associate themselves with the school administration (and are hence more immune to censorship), there’s The Campus Observer, which was started in 2007, and The Kent Ridge Common, started slightly more than a year ago. The latter lauds itself as “the NUS students’ independent news source”, although it also keeps an eye on news that affects Singapore as a whole. Both are online-based.
I feel there’s too many publications here fighting for a limited pool of both good student journalists that are willing to work for free or nothing more than a handful of CCA points, and readers genuinely interested in seeing school publications flourish. Both do not come by easily, especially the former. There’s a really big difference between student journalists and student bloggers – one moves around, asks questions that truly matter, and reports the facts for his readers. The other just writes what he feels. Right now, there’s too many bloggers enthusiastically penning down what they feel about this and that and too little reporting going on. And even if there’s some attempt at reporting, readers usually go away with more questions than answers.
I’m no expert in journalism, and I still have tons to learn myself as a greenhorn, but here are my humble suggestions – since The Ridge and Hooked are both affiliated with NUSSU, can’t NUSSU merge them and achieve economies of scale?
Of course, that might not improve the standard of journalism in the newly-merged paper, which leads one to question where should students of Communications and New Media classes work for – The Campus Observer, or an official NUSSU publication? For the good of NUS-based publications, maybe they should be given the choice to work for either, and be graded on their performances.
For unofficial publications like The Campus Observer and The Kent Ridge Common, my editor has always believed that they should set up a business model, rake in money and pay their writers and editors. That way, they’ll attract far more, and better student journalists than before. I agree with her.
Until that happens, I think we’ll continue getting articles and publications that are a shadow of their true potential. Which is sad, actually. Because I do want them to flourish.
