“WRITE something about yourself”. I still remember this ‘test’.
It was given to me by a senior editor at Sarawak Tribune when I interviewed to be a cadet reporter many years ago.
That senior editor would later become my colleague along with a number of top editors whose experiences are unparalleled in the context of English news agencies in Sarawak.
My worry then was not that I couldn’t string together a number of words to pass the ‘test’ but rather, it was my handwriting which was illegible at times.
The fact is, I never had to resort to writing to save my skin. My writing, the way that I was trained, was in the form of instructional codes for computer programming, being a software engineer.
The language that was used was not English, it was not even Malay. It was Java, C++, HTML5 among others – these are programming languages.
There are also others, but I couldn’t seem to recall many as I was not as proficient nor experienced in those programming languages.
One might ask, what is the difference in writing scripts meant for the understanding of humans and machines?
I recall that for programming, command lines are meant to be written in a particular way, as it is the only way that a machine could understand it. It was not in any way expressive, it was instructional; regimented.
Writing in a broader sense – to be understood by humans is far more flexible because there is a sense of emotion involved along with the freedom to express one’s thoughts and opinions.
An example is how I would write this column and share stories. Another is through article writing, be it news or features.
But now of course, with artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs), machines too can understand languages used by humans – we will get back to this.
Writing as a concept – words are powerful and can provoke thoughts and trigger responses. That is why the responsibilities of a journalist, while they might be looked down on by some, it is recognised by others as well.
DUTY IN REPORTING
I still remember in the first few weeks of working as a reporter, I thought I figured it all out. I was made to understand that there are a few types of news articles. There was function news, crime news, sports news and press releases among others.
I worked out a system whereby I would prepare “templates”. The idea was that I had these news “skeletons” ready on my computer and when it came time to actually write the news, I would only need to fill in the blanks.
This was the “engineer” way of thinking that I am accustomed to.
But I soon realised that I would need to prepare for more templates as I learnt that I had to tweak the existing ones to cater for particular situations to the extent that I am rewriting them every time. I abandoned the idea altogether shortly after.
The thing is, in writing, there is an amount of freedom in how you choose to articulate your points. But too much freedom without regimentation is also an issue, and it is an issue I observed in new reporters whom I trained and worked with.
They would often get hung up on how to start their articles, spending precious time mulling over their first sentence in a news article. The issue with this is that we have to deal with tight deadlines.
Of course, many of them were trained in this discipline. They have learned the basics of journalism in their university years.
They learnt the “inverted pyramid” diagram where one must put the most important details on top, followed by supporting points. They also learned the “persuasion triad” which comprised ‘ethos’ (credibility), ‘pathos’ (emotions) and ‘logos’ (logic or reason) to be incorporated in their articles.
I gave them the same advice I gave others, which is to simply start. Start with anything because you will have the opportunity to amend the article afterwards if you think you can start your story better.
Another pro-tip is to understand the context. News articles are in some way, a continuation of a saga.
There must be something, some event or revelation that triggered the need for this news item. Whatever it is, you should understand it, and by understanding, one can write better ledes (opening sentences).
In the words of a former Sarawak minister – “gasak ajak” (just do it), which is funnily the slogan of an American athletic apparel brand.
A DIFFERENT WORLD
To say that the world of news writing is not the same as when I entered it would be a massive understatement, particularly with the rise of AI and LLMs.
Today, a reporter could, if they choose, let AI do all the heavy lifting in news writing. They could simply prompt a command to ChatGPT, “Write this news” and seconds later, the AI would generate a complete news article.
I don’t take issue with AI, in fact, it is a very valuable tool for collating information. Gemini, which is embedded into the Google search function is an example.
However, the issue lies in “settling”. Meaning if a writer deems the generated article is good enough as is, they would simply turn over the product and consider the task done.
But the issue with this is that not only would it occasionally include reporting errors – for example, inserting erroneous facts, but it also takes away the expressiveness and freedom that writing provides in the first place.
But one can also argue that the freedom in writing allows AI to take root.
When it is overused, AI-generated news articles would read the same way and I could see it being similar to how I tried to “generate” news articles with my templates.
But probably I was trained the “old school” way which is to tell stories the way I see and understand them.
Regardless, AI or otherwise, I hope young reporters take pride in their work and understand the mighty powers that they have in shaping the thoughts and opinions of others.
Certainly, this represents a significant obligation that may not be immediately grasped by everyone. Probably to some, this is just another job that pays the bills. I thought of it the same way.
But give it a chance, may you find joy in writing and the meantime, “tulis ajak” (just write).
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at nazmixsuhaimi@gmail.com.
