She’s got a story to tell It takes more than a nose for news to cultivate readership for my paper, says Singapore Press Holdings scholar Miao Fong Tien By Koh Joh Ting TO HEAR Ms Miao Fong Tien speak, you would never guess that she was born in Taiwan. Her adoption of the Singapore accent and figures of speech is so complete that it comes as a surprise when she reveals that she still travels on a Taiwanese passport. Educated at a neighbourhood primary school when she first came to Singapore at the age of 12, Ms Miao did her O levels at Raffles Girls’ Secondary and A levels at Hwa Chong Junior College. She then went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in economics, politics and international studies from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. In 2005, she obtained her Master of Science in media and communications regulations from the London School of Economics. Ms Miao, 27, who is a Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) scholarship holder, says her interest in journalism stems from the fact that she enjoys telling stories. During the school holidays, she had interned at the Lianhe Zaobao’s News and Finance News Desks, and at Channel U. While she picked up the basics of journalism at the News Desk, she says her second internship at the Finance News Desk was an “eye-opening experience into the real world”. At Channel U, things literally lit up for her. “It was a more energetic newsroom with a constant adrenaline rush, lots of movement and yelling across corridors. It was a sky apart from the silent print news room,” she says. “I liked the energy, and I learnt the skills of storytelling on TV through audio-visual means.” Upon graduation in 2005, she joined SPH as a full-time journalist under SPH’s Chinese Newspaper Division. She was initially put on the court reporting team at Shin Min Daily. That was where she learnt to identify story angles that appeal to readers. Some of the more prominent cases she has followed include that of a university professor who had a Chinese national as a mistress. She also attended the extensive court hearings of T.T. Durai, the former chief executive officer of National Kidney Foundation. And as a crime reporter, she has had her share of being shouted at and having doors slammed in her face. Today, Ms Miao is a financial journalist at my paper, Singapore’s first bilingual freesheet. She says: “The challenge of working at my paper is that you have to cultivate your readership,” she says. “You cannot assume you have an immediate readership like you would at The Straits Times or Lianhe Zaobao.” In addition, she also has to package news in an interesting manner for the online version of my paper that was launched in February last year. She says: “The boundary between traditional and new media is always dynamic, the line is never fixed. “Questions are always asked, for instance, why some content can come out in the mobile format but not in the print format.” Dealing with integrated media is a very valuable experience, she adds. The ability to position herself comfortably between East and West as well as the traditional and the new gives Ms Miao the confidence to adapt to challenges. “I feel I have what it takes to work anywhere in the world,” she says.