MM, THE STILL NEWSY SMALL PAPER

I'LL be honest. Although I was with two newspaper companies for 21 years until 11 years ago and was involved indirectly with one of the companies after that, I always remind myself that giving too much time thinking about "matters of the press" doesn't bring me much good. For sure it doesn't bring me any revenue, unlike my cake lapis, puffs and crab-meat & shrimp serunding.

I do talk occasionally about the newspaper industry and its peculiarities but only with a few close confidants. To someone else who comes to me with problems about his newspaper, my response is always to ask him to sort things out for himself.

Similarly stories being circulated about the Malay Mail, with which I was a reporter for 32 months and a news editor for almost 30 months. The latter stint, while full of confrontations with traditionalists who insisted that MM should focus on being a Klang Valley paper, was truly satisfying because it ended with circulation peaking at an average of 70,000 copies daily, even 85,000 on a good day. MM has never gotten close since, despite the many changes in editorship and in recent years, ownership. Or maybe because of these changes?

No doubt I continue to feel for the paper despite it being so "insignificant" now. Working for the MM was very different than working for the NST, Berita Harian or the Sun. MM has always been a small paper in ever sense but most pleasantly its smaller staff strength meant better camaraderie. There was a closeness in relationships not felt at the NST and the rest. But just like my attitude of keeping detached from the newspaper world as much as possible while continuing to write through other channels like this blog and at the MalaysianDigest news portal once a week, I also try not to allow myself to be affected by the continued decay of the MM since about 15 years ago, sad though it may be.

But journalists will always be journalists. They are essentially gossipy in nature, thriving on rumours and speculations, everyone insisting that his sources are more reliable than his colleagues' and thus his version the truth. Still I wonder why such a small outfit like the MM should continue to attract so much interest at a time when the rest of the media has left it so far behind.

There is now a fresh round of talk that the paper is going to have yet another new controlling shareholder and that former editor Ahirudin Attan is returning to his old post. A former MM reporter told me yesterday he knew that was correct. Ahirudin himself has written quite a few pieces about MM since a few weeks ago and you could read the hints that he was prepared to go back.

Some weeks ago I was asked to give my views about the paper. I dissected eight consecutive issues and was shocked with what was before me. (Since around the mid-90s I have stopped buying or reading the paper, which shows how much I've been affected by the changes in content.) The paper has lost all its shape. With the changes that are due to take place I guess my findings are academic. I don't think I need to hand in my views now, for why I should I tell anyone how to run a paper, not when I'm not paid for it.

It's up to the next group of owners and editors to decide how best to run it. Some say a free paper is what works. Yes and no. Many of the papers that have a cover price are still doing ok and if the free model is THE model, I'm sure the world's biggest newspaper owners would have all gone free today. The truth is there is no single particular successful model. Each environment is different. Is going online the choice no one should ignore? Yes but that too doesn't guarantee success. The only answer I'm sure not many newspaper brains will disagree with is content, content and content. You must first get that right. That's all that I'm prepared to say.