Kota Samarahan, Oct 6: Eighty communication programme students from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), got a first-hand experience this morning of how journalists work during a talk entitled “My Journey as a Journalist” by Nancy Nais, a journalist with DayakDaily.
Nancy, who has over 14 years of experience working as a journalist, shared her knowledge of journalism and how she got started in this field.
Interestingly, Nancy admitted that her involvement in journalism was accidental. A graduate in hospitality, she worked with two hotels before bumping into her secondary school History teacher, who challenged her to give journalism a try.
“I took up the challenge because it sounded exciting and different,” she told the third-year students.
“Always wanting to know more, becoming a part of important events that will go down as history, and meeting new people are some of the reasons why I chose this career path.”
Nancy disliked the idea of working from 8 to 5. Working as a journalist gave her the excitement of knowing things firsthand before the news is being printed or broadcasted to the public.
“As a journalist, it gives me some form of satisfaction and accomplishment when I cover functions, even though at times I have to wait for hours to get the information. The fact that I like travelling and meeting people, working as a journalist presented me with the opportunity to travel while covering events, both locally and abroad,” she said.
Nancy has travelled to many countries, including Japan, China, Macau, Maldives, Indonesia (Jogjakarta), Cambodia and France (Paris).
She admitted taking a breather from journalism for two years and worked in the banking sector, but she eventually realized that her passion is journalism.
So she decided to quit her job that deals with dollars and cents and went back to the one that involves interviewing people big and small and then rushing back to the office and start pounding on the keyboard to transform the raw data gathered into stories.
Among the knowledge that she shared during the talk was the challenges of working as a journalist.
Nancy also advised students, who attended the talk under the `Bengkel Madah Samarahan’ initiative, not to make assumptions when writing news, because they must be accurate in their reporting.
“Responsible journalists must be able to write fairly and give the other party the opportunity to be heard. Writing inaccurate news will land you in hot soup. As a good journalist, you must make sure to double-check your facts all the time and meet the deadlines set by your editors,” she pointed out. — DayakDaily
