By Marissa Nazeera
GOMBAK, 24 June 2021: IIUMToday is committed to bring improved news coverage to the campus community within and outside the university to keep our readers informed of interesting development, its editor Mr. Aznan Mat Piah said.
He gave this comment following the Silver award won by IIUMToday at the Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences (KIRKHS) Takreem 2021 on Monday (21 June).
“The award which shows recognition from the Kulliyyah and the campus community has brought great motivation and inspiration to the editorial team, and this would certainly boost our spirit to enhance our role further,” he expressed.
Mr. Aznan who is also the Gold recipient of the Best Educator Award at the Takreem 2021, stressed that winning this Silver award meant a lot to everyone in the editorial team.
He expressed the hope that members of the editorial team will continue to keep up with the good job and enhance their reporting and writing skills.
Besides that, he felt that it is important for IIUMToday to ensure that the operation of the news portal will not be disrupted when the senior members of the team graduated. In this regard, he welcomes new members to join the team.
“This is where new members who joined IIUMToday should learn fast from their seniors to acquire the right journalism skills to be able to replace them and continue with the tasks and responsibility. This would ensure smooth transition and continuity,” he said.
“Learning is a continuous process and writing will be the practical application of the knowledge, hence students should avail themselves of the opportunity to join the news portal as they stand to benefit from the journalism experience,” he further said.
As editor of IIUMenulis (Malay section of IIUMToday) and a senior academic of the Department of Communication, Mr. Amran Baharum feels proud that IIUMToday managed to receive the award which is also a recognition of the news portal’s contribution towards the university community.
“IIUMToday has gone through years of experience in managing its operations and already reached its maturity age. The success is actually achieved through great efforts by students and lecturers who have to be alert 24 hours and seven days a week in providing latest updates to its readers,” Mr. Amran said.
He stressed that the students involved in running IIUMToday are highly motivated. The students should take the opportunity to prepare themselves for the real working environment later which is much more demanding in terms of work commitments.
He hoped for IIUMToday to further strengthen its presence in the campus community as well as among IIUM alumni and public in general in order to achieve more success in future.
Meanwhile, the coordinator of IIUMToday, Dr. Wan Norshira Wan Mohd Ghazali shared, “With or without this recognition, IIUMToday is moving forward with more improvements from year to year.”
“Before this, we didn’t pay much attention to the need of social media, but now, we see it as the main medium to promote our IIUMToday website, which means we keep up with the technology to remain relevant like newspapers in Malaysia,” she added.
She has always perceived IIUMToday as a platform for all communication students to apply their principles of journalism as hands-on training.
Hoping that IIUMToday as a campus news bearer will be used as a platform for students to remain committed, Dr. Wan Norshira expected students to also use the portal to polish up their writing skills.
The portal’s student managing editor, Iylia Marsya, agreed that the campus news website had served a useful platform for students to communicate and apply their journalism knowledge and skills.
At the same time, Marsya stressed, “We want to do more to further improve our coverage and enhance our news value.”
Believing that the award would be a catalyst for the team to work harder for the university, Marsya wished for the journalists to always stay passionate and focus in their duties and assignments.
She hoped the student journalists would continue to grow and expand their horizon of knowledge.
IIUMToday is both a learning and a sharing platform where students as well as academics have the opportunity to share their stories and opinion with readers on a wide range of subjects such as education, social, culture, environment, technology, health, economy and politics.
Outstanding Student Society Award (Silver)
The award received by IIUMToday comes under the Outstanding Student Society Award listed under the Student and Community Engagement category award. The Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences Students’ Society (IRKHSSS) won Gold award while the Bronze award went to Secretariat of Arabic Language & Literature (ALA). ***