I was recently in Taipei attending the 100th anniversary of Taiwan’s Central News Agency.

This year marks the 95th anniversary of Sin Chew Daily, and in five years’ time, we will follow the CNA’s footsteps to become another major media organisation that claims a century of history!

Both time-honoured media organisations have remained insistent to operate along orthodox journalistic lines, and have refused to reduce ourselves to mere content farms.

We firmly believe that the media must fortify their own integrity and public credibility, and shine as a beacon of hope in their respective communities.

To a media organisation, being a hundred years old doesn’t only mean it has successfully overcome a plethora of challenges that comes its way, but has also witnessed the many crucial historical moments that deserve to be put down in black and white.

As a matter of fact, Sin Chew Daily’s 95-year press history is in essence a rendition of heart-warming stories of Chinese Malaysians struggling, toiling and growing on this beloved land of ours.

Many say the Chinese community in Malaysia today is anchored upon the four pillars of Chinese language media, Chinese associations, Chinese businesses and Chinese language education. Unfortunately, such close-knit correlation is becoming increasingly vulnerable as the people’s values change, along with the weaknesses in the media themselves — in tandem with the changing times.

Sin Chew Daily’s 95th anniversary dinners have so far been staged in Seremban, Klang, Alor Setar, Penang and Kuala Lumpur, and will later move on to Melaka, Muar, Batu Pahat, Johor Bahru, Sibu, Miri, Bintulu, Kuching, Kota Kinabalu, Bentong, Kuantan, Ipoh and Kota Bharu, with the grand finale slated for October 25 in the capital city.

During these anniversary dinners and on other occasions, I came across young readers approaching me to tell me they had grown up reading Sin Chew Daily! Such a powerful assertion has injected into many still struggling in their respective journalistic careers tremendous courage to go on.

There are also some young entrepreneurs who told me they took a lot of pride being Sin Chew cadet reporters at some point of time. It has been an absolutely uplifting experience being able to share these memorable moments with so many of you together!

The life journeys of these young people have witnessed dramatic changes because of their encounters with Sin Chew Daily, which has remarkably broadened their scopes and enriched their global visions, while feeding them with diverse viewpoints. We can say that these young people had Sin Chew Daily as their most faithful companion through their growing years.

And it was also because of reading Sin Chew Daily that I witnessed a dramatic transformation in my life. A modest recruitment advertisement on the newspaper incidentally put me on my decades-long journey in the journalistic line.

Journalism has since become my lifelong career, and up till this very moment I dare say I have no regret having chosen this career.

Thanks to this career, I have been able to learn about the good, the bad and the ugly of humanity from a near distance, how to let go of the worldly stuff and how to deal with people and things — without having to fork out a single cent of tuition fee!

Such experiences have gradually shaped my value system on life, and have guided me in dealing with people, how to stay calm in bad times, and have constantly reminded me to have empathy for other people.

Most importantly, I have learned to harness the powers entrusted to me to do the right things and help those in need, not to abuse them to make life difficult for others or ostentatiously show off my authority.

Many young Malaysians have seen their dreams of completing higher education come true, and their fates permanently changed, because of the financial assistance from Sin Chew Daily’s Education Fund. Some 1,645 students have benefited from this fund over the past 20 years!

This is one of the societal values that justifies Sin Chew Daily’s continued existence.

Chinese language media can only retain their societal clout, sustain their development, and henceforth consolidate the four pillars of the Malaysian Chinese community, if and when the community has essentially come to realisation the ultimate worth and significance of Chinese newspapers.

Unfortunately, following the rise of new media, many traditional media organisations abruptly find themselves struggling for mere survival. Some have been forced to abandon their print businesses to fully embrace the new media battleground owing to the escalating cost of operation. That said, the new media platform itself is multifarious and by no means a bed of roses.

Many newspaper companies have lost their reporters and editors in recent years to more lucrative industries, resulting in growingly severe discontinuity in the operation of their editorial desks. This has a negative bearing on the quality of their news delivery.

To these media companies, daily news generation is already an uphill challenge given the acute shorthandedness, let alone churning out high-quality content.

Sin Chew Daily is one of a handful of media companies still able to despatch its reporters to cover news and events of local Chinese associations and businesses. If and when even this fundamental ability is taken away from Sin Chew Daily, the four pillars of the Malaysian Chinese community might start to give way!

Sin Chew Daily still commits itself to producing high-quality news content every single day. For example, in our “Sunday Headline” section, we report in depth and expose all kinds of problems that beleaguer our society. And on the back of sustained trade war between the United States and China, whereby ASEAN is increasingly perceived as the world’s next nucleus of growth, Sin Chew Daily has come up with a timely “Discover ASEAN” column that accords the readers a deeper understanding of the bloc’s importance while exploring opportunities in its member states.

In the meantime, following the advent of Artificial Intelligence, the already highly unpredictable cyber world has become increasingly risky. While new technologies have catapulted breakneck developments in many areas, on the flip side they have also plunged our society into unprecedented dangers and hence, social ills.

Not everyone in our society knows how to effectively harness the available search engines to attain broad-based news content on various platforms. More often than not, many are inclined to unthinkingly forward whatsoever messages they are fed with on such platforms to people sharing the same ideological conviction.

Such a mode of information absorption by way of continual brainwashing has sadly incapacitated independent thinking unwittingly.

As if that’s not enough, these people seldom read newspapers. Although they are aware that many people around them have fallen victim to online scams, they might not know exactly how these scam syndicates operate, and are thus susceptible to the scams.

On the contrary, news coverage and content painstakingly compiled by media practitioners have allowed the readers to visualise a much more comprehensive picture, prompting them to engage in instant reasoning and analysis in the course of reading, lest they fall into the traps set up by scam syndicates or information cocoons.

News content that has been carefully filtered and compiled by professional editors and reporters is better positioned to promote critical thinking among the readers, henceforth keeping them sober and rational in the age of information overload.

Our society is in constant need of high-quality, reliable and socially responsible media. In view of this, it is imperative that local Chinese associations and businesses are concerned about the predicament of Malaysia’s Chinese language media so that good-quality media will get to survive and thrive.

Meanwhile, we in the media industry must be constantly reminded of our social obligation and mission, and continue to provide our readers the most truthful and reliable news content.

We strive to reinforce the trust our readers have in us through constantly improving our reporting standards while safeguarding the core values of the media.

Chinese language media can only retain their societal clout, sustain their development, and henceforth consolidate the four pillars of the Malaysian Chinese community, if and when the community has essentially come to realisation the ultimate worth and significance of Chinese newspapers.