Advice by Feizal Samath

We must always be careful not to overdo the ‘praise’ of the public or private sectors in stories.

A straight forward news story is reporting the facts. In a story where allegations are made, we report the claim and balance it by getting the other side to comment.

This is not easy in the style of writing that we promote at the STFT – featurish, laidback stories that would sizzle and excite the reader enough to read a serious biz story on a relaxed Sunday morning or afternoon. Now this is where experience also counts – particularly in knowing the background to events, issues and sectors that we cover.

For example – say, finance – we may be impressed by a presentation made by Dr P B Jayasundera, Treasury Secretary, on the economy; but for journalists who keep abreast with the news, we are also aware that he can be a political stooge. Thus, we temper praise for his presentation and ‘facts’ with the fact that he may also be responsible for the crisis whatever it is.

Then, for example – we would find Aitken Spence’s new plan to use indigenous food a great story and great motivator of what we should eat. However on the other hand, we may be unaware that the hotel chain may be discriminating against local villagers from the community and buying stuff from another village. Or that it sells stale food to guests. Thus, if such a thing is happening, we may shoot ourselves in the foot by overdoing the praise-for-the-hotel-on-what-a-great-thing-it-is-doing, etc while sections of the public who know the other side will find us very partial.

The point I am making is that in trying to make an uninteresting story look exciting and to tempt the reader to go beyond the headline – which is what we are striving for – we may unwittingly be offering too much praise or too much criticism. The trick here is to be balanced and objective – and also make a complicated and boring business/ finance story readable for a Sunday reader.