By Ahmed Wafi RashidÂ
GOMBAK, 19 April 2015: Â The IIUMToday’s news team was delighted to have the presence of Mohd Sulhi Azman, better known as Max Sulhi, a financial journalist of The Edge, sharing his experience on financial journalism over the weekend.
The Edge is Malaysia’s leading financial newspaper and IIUMToday’s journalists were in for a treat as Sulhi utilised his precious time to give useful tips. Sulhi had previously worked as a lecturer before becoming a journalist with The Edge Communications Sdn. Bhd.
The venue for the programme was the Cultural Activity Centre (CAC) seminar room. The event began at half past ten as Sulhi arrived in the CAC seminar room before introducing himself to the small crowd of IIUMToday’s journalists and Communication lecturers present, including the advisor of the online campus news bulletin, Dr. Aini Maznina A. Manaf.
Sulhi began his talk by testing the crowd with a short mathematical exercise saying that having basic mathematical skill is very important in the world of financial journalism.
He also gave  tips on how to write more attractive headlines. One of the tips, he gave, was that as journalists they should try to utilise percentages when writing headlines instead of the real increase/decrease of the price of goods.
The forum was not a one-way communication scheme as the crowd present was encouraged to ask questions which the speaker happily answered all queries directed to him. The speaker was unselfish when it came to sharing his experiences in the journalism world and also spoke of the wide variety of perks that he received when attending events and meetings with some of the largest companies in the world.
One of the questions asked was how he managed to land himself a job as a financial journalist as he came from a background of physics and sciences. Â His reply was that he simply had an interest in finance and the like. That could act as a valuable message to all potential journalists present who intended to go into such field.
In order to find out what we really like and what we are really good at, we need to explore and try new things, you never know, what the world has in store for us.
The 28-year-old financial journalist was later approached by the junior reporters (of IIUMToday) who wanted to ask him more personal questions, especially on how he made it to the journalism field.
All in all, Sulhi’s talk was very useful, an eye opening to most and beneficial to mould the future generation of journalists. For this, IIUMToday’s news team was grateful for his presence.***
Photo courtesy of SimondsMD