New Media New Malaysia

You must make a point listening to BFM 89.9, once in a while. It's definitely different from our normal radio stations.

On way back yesterday, I listened to Caroline Oh's In conversation with Mkini Cofounder, Mr. Premesh Chandran and this morning, curious as usual, I googled him (OK, OK, OK I'm google-manic) and then landed on Bunga Pakma's "Happy 10th anniversary, Malaysiakini" post in Hornbill Unleashed, first appeared in November last year (Yes, I'm always late one).

Bunga Pakma writes about amazing stories on Madam Harriet Beecher Stowe (I love her "Uncle Tom's Cabin") and Dr. Jonathan Swift (Have you read his "Gulliver's Travels?), that could be the hallmark of a saying, "The pen is mightier than the sword".

I like it when Bunga Pakma ended the feel-good post with this: -

"Swift is a hero, certainly my hero, and I should hope a hero to any journalist and writer. Swift speaks to us from his epitaph in Dublin Cathedral:-

“Go, traveller, and imitate—if you can—him who defended liberty with courage as a man must”.

How timely that the famous Dato' Sak writes about the inefficacy of NST revamp here.

New Media, like Mkini, is definitely the way to go because there's nothing but the truth that we people need to know, today (unlike MSM that give us yesterday's news today) and get people changing - in many ways, big and small, alone or together. Like what Mr. Premesh Chandran told Caroline that there is so many Heroes out there, gone unnoticed - yes, because they know they need to do something for this Ibu Pertiwi and its people.

Oh, do you know that "Malaysiakini today is one of the two news websites in the world - the other being Wall Street Journal - which have made the subscription model a success" and as of July 2009, Malaysiakini became the most read news website according to Google.

Thank you Bunga Pakma and Mkini. May we have people like Dr. Taylor Swift in our Ibu Pertiwi.

p.s. Again, a duet by M. Nasir and Malique's "Mantera Beradu", would be a fitting song for this post.

p.s.s. Well, I won't start blogging if not for exposure to reading Mkini, where I first 'met' Yang Berkhidmat Jeff Ooi and get 'acquainted' with his famous blog. It even published all articles I sent to them. Merci be coupe Mkini!