After 47 Years I’m A Social Media Journalist

A Kadir Jasin

An old picture of An Emperor and the old time journalists

AS an ageing journalist with no claim to any prominent appointment or media organisation, I stand no chance of being invited to participate in any meaningful programme.

Although I continue to write actively after leaving the New Straits Times Press in 2000, my station in the media is inferior to those of big time editors-in-chief and news controllers of the mainstream media.

Since that date, I have become insignificant enough for media handlers to conveniently ignore my pleas to be invited to attend some of the Prime Minister’s more significant briefings.

Even the supposedly influential media adviser to the Prime Minister, (Tan Sri) Jalaluddin Bahaudin, had not been able to get me an appointment to see the Prime Minister, (Datuk Seri I Mappadulung Daeng Mattimung Karaeng Sandrobone Sultan Abdul Jalil) Mohd Najib Abdul Razak. He had since left the PMO.

Over time, parallel to my growing disenchantment with the government, even press and political secretaries, some of whom were my subordinates in the NSTP, ceased to entertain my queries. My SMS and WhatsApp messages went unanswered.

There are also government agencies that do not want to have anything to do with me because I ask politically incorrect questions like is it true that a certain Malaysian Tamil Tan Sri was given a loan of RM400 million by a government-owned financial institution and an honorary Indonesian Tan Sri received a half billion ringgit in government advance to build a hotel.

There is, however, an advantage of being a pariah. You are free to write whatever you want because nobody pleads with you on what to write and not to write. No “wahyu” from the gods of Putrajaya.

Being an outcast, no government- and party-linked newspaper dares to offer you a column. Even your long-running column got terminated on the excuse that the paper was revamping.

But God’s blessing is bountiful and comes in many forms. Lo and behold along came the Internet. So in February 2006 I began my “hijrah” to the online media. I started this and later opened a Facebook account.

Thought I still write weekly and monthly columns for an independent newspaper and a magazine – both in the Malay language - most of my media presence these days is online.

Whether in print or online, I am still a journalist. Even when I am using a social media platform like Facebook, my approach is journalistic.

So it comes as a pleasant surprise when Gaimu-sho – Japan’s Wisma Putra – through its Kuala Lumpur Embassy invited me to visit Japan as a social media journalist.

Social media journalist? It sounds awkward but I am grateful. It seems that my presence in the blogsphere and Facebook has been officially recognised by the Japanese Government.

So here I am, blogging from the New Otani Hotel in the heart of Tokyo, having flown in this afternoon on the super sleek ANA’s Boeing B787 Dreamliner, to begin a weeklong visit.

A Social Media Journalist in Tokyo: Welcome Sign at Narita

I can’t remember how many times I had visited Japan since the first one in 1979 as the maiden recipient of the Mitsubishi-Press Foundation of Asia Editor of the Year Award a year before.

But I remember a visit in 1991 with several fellow journalists in the run-up to the official visit by Emperor Akihito to Malaysia. We were honoured with an audience with the monarch at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. We had tea with His Majesty.

So here I am back In Japan once again with a very unique assignment -- to meet as many people of my choice as possible and report the outcomes to readers and followers of my blog and Facebook.

I had already posted on the Facebook and one friend, Abdul Hamid Mohamed, made a very pertinent point about the changing media scene.

He wrote: “He he, I have long said, social media is now the main stream media. What used to be main stream is now downstream with shrinking circulation etc. Main stream should also be rebranded - to its old name - traditional media…..”

Arigatou gozaimasu and sayonara for now.

Wallahuaklam.