By Hessa Kawthar
GOMBAK, 16 April 2022: Journalists must possess certain fundamental qualities in enhancing their credibility while maintaining a good adab as the nation’s heartbeat and storyteller, an essence learned from a news training “understanding the beat” held online on Friday.
The speaker, Senator Datuk Ras Adiba Radzi, the Chairman of Malaysian National News Agency (BERNAMA), shared her journalism and broadcasting experiences as a veteran journalist of TV3 (Media Prima) in the early 1980s and 1990s.
Ras Adiba is also currently a Distinguished Fellow of Communication and Media Centre (COMET), AbdulHamid AbuSulayman Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences (AHAS KIRKHS).
She asserted other excellent attributes of a good journalist such as being persuasive, eloquent, and diplomatic to lure the audiences into their stories because words are the world’s changer.
“A journalist must know how to play with words, where a pen is mightier than a sword,” claimed Ras Adiba.
She also stressed upon the amanah as journalists would face numerous temptations along their journey. They should not be deluded by fake news for the sake of commerciality and profit.
“Make sure to check before you disseminate, it’s not about being glamorous, it’s about amanah,” Ras Adiba highlighted.
Ras Adiba also encouraged young journalists to be confident and proud of who they are, in which these qualities should be reflected through their body language, intonation, and eye contact while delivering the news although it is an undeniably tough world out there.
She further shared her first experience entering the journalism field where she was asked by a recruiter, “Who is going to believe an 18-year-old girl reading the news?”.
“Well, I am not just an 18-year-old, I am somebody who is very determined and focused, and I would like to be given this chance if you allow me,” Ras Adiba recalled.
Ras Adiba has set a wonderful precedent for fellow journalists, and her enthusiasm was told in the IIUMToday news training session through Google Meet which was joined by some 30 participants. ***