Those black days when the Star was shut down

Tales of the Dark Days – I
Beginning a short series by journalists looking back on the Shutdown

The Oct 27 editions
Klang Valley final edition	The early edition outside Selangor

LETTER FROM AUCKLAND
By Charles Chan

Charles Chan in Auckland

Twenty-five years, a quarter of a century: a long way back to recall that black day when the government used the ISA to round up opposition politicians and other critics. The next day, on Oct 27, after The Star reported the event with a front-page photo gallery of those detained, the newspaper was banned, along with Sin Chew Jit Poh and Watan.

We had got news of the detentions in the afternoon of the 26th and at our editorial meeting that evening discussed how to play up the news. What came out the next day was a brilliant effort by the subs desk.

At the time, I had been a month with the paper, having left Business Times where I was news editor. Now an associate editor, I was minding the store at the Star’s Business Desk, filling in for business editor PY Chin who was on assignment in Germany.

I believe it was NV Raman who got wind of the arrests and promptly informed the News Desk. I was shocked but not surprised. There was a lot of political tension at the time arising from a power struggle (Mahathir v Razaleigh) and a noisy campaign by Chinese educationists.

The government was apparently not happy with the way we had reported events connected to these two issues. When the newspaper was shut down, the editor-in-chief, VK Chin, was in Sarawak and there was concern that he, too, would be locked up but mercifully, that did not happen.

Burger-stall and lorry-driver journos

I remember that afternoon, managing director Steven Tan addressed an assembly of employees, urging them to stay calm. He pledged to do everything he could to get the newspaper back in action.

During the many months of suspension, employees of the newspaper survived on substantially-reduced salaries and many were forced to supplement their income with part-time jobs elsewhere. I know of a sub who set up a burger stall while another journalist picked up part time work with a motor company driving delivery trucks. (When it finally re-opened, the MD took steps to restore wages including back-pay to cover wage cuts during the ban.)

See also:

• The day of the dictator
• Playing the game of Risk in journalism
• Tunku’s lament, then off in search of jobs
• A personal silver lining

---

People mentioned

• NV Raman, though assistant news editor, was the chief political correspondent. As one of seven people on Umno’s black list at Operation Lallang, he went to a desk job at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He returned to Malaysia for a few years in the late 1990s as a political consultant, and now works in corporate communications based in Jakarta.
• K Nadarajah, then production editor, was editor on duty that day and responsible for the front page. Also one on the black list, he went to Hong Kong as regional editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, returning to Malaysia in 2007 to edit the Letters pages of the New Straits Times until 2010.
• Andy Ng, then chief sub-editor, later became editor of The Sun when it was taken over by Berjaya group’s Vincent Tan. He is now editor of The National in Papua-New Guinea.
• Ng Kee Seng, crime reporter, later became news editor of The Star in Penang, then Penang bureau chief and news editor in KL for The Sun. He now freelances as an editorial and political consultant.
• Toh Lye Huat later went to The Edge and The Sun, and is now involved in starting a new business weekly newspaper for Clement Hii, former boss of The Star.
• VK Chin became group editorial adviser of The Star after retiring as group editor. He died in June last year.
• PY Chin, business editor of the Star, later became a business consultant.
• Steven Tan, then managing director of Star Publications, publishers of The Star, became an adviser to the Kuok family for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong.

A handful of editorial staff were rostered for duty during the ban: they would monitor the teleprinters which were left running to receive foreign news and Bernama bulletins. To cut costs, most lights were switched off, as were the air-conditioners and fans. It was hot, stuffy and gloomy in the newroom. I had some of these shifts but soon got tired of it: there was really nothing to do apart from reading and stacking up foreign news reports.

I found other activities to pass the time – playing tennis at the ASTAKA with Toh Lye Huat, Andy Ng and Ng Kee Seng. When we could not book the court, we would play mahjong. I also went swmming often at the PJ pool next to the A&W.

Looking elsewhere

I cannot imagine how other Star employees, especially those in the lower income bracket, coped with the loss of income, the uncertainty and despair they faced daily as they waited for the ban to be lifted. I was rather fortunate that just before the axe fell I had already made arrangements to pay off my mortage with my EPF. But as my savings dwindled, I began to consider working abroad.

I contacted a Kiwi friend with whom I had previously worked at a Singapore newspaper and told him of my wanting to look for a job in NZ or Australia: I was only asking for information but he responded a week later with an offer from the editor of the Auckland Sun (now defunct).

It took me more than three months to make up my mind, and that only after my NZ friend reminded me that the newspaper could not wait too long for a reply.

The Auckland Sun hired me as a sub-editor, a job I had not done before, but the conversion was easy: in my capacity as news editor, I had been cleaning up and re-writing reporters’ copy for more than a decade.

How hard is it to trim a copy to required length, spot spelling and grammatical errors, improve a sentence and write a headline? Reporters everywhere – white, brown, black or yellow — make mistakes, creating a demand for subs. Even the editor who hired me had a spelling deficiency and sometimes it fell upon me to spot these errors in his editorials.

Whenever subs at The Star complained about having to spend too much time cleaning up poorly written copy, I would remind them that were it not for these errors, there would be no need for subs.

For Charles, life after newspapers is still full of drama

The suspension of The Star was a black day in Malaysian journalism. The government action was unjustified, a gross abuse of power, its consequences continue to be felt today in the decline of journalistic standards at mainstream newspapers.

For myself, it was a huge setback in my career. For the sake of my family, I had to make hard choices: migrating to NZ meant climbing down a few rungs of the ladder. Being a pragmatic fellow, I was happy to be able to work as a journalist in NZ, accepted by my peers, and able to provide for my family. I have a few regrets but I can live with them.

There were times when people I befriended asked me how I ended up in Auckland.

I gave them a two-word reply: “Dr Mahathir.”

 

---

Charles Chan once worked at the now defunct Eastern Sun, and was a member of the original editorial crew of The Star in 1971, as chief reporter and right-hand man to news editor K Sugumaran. He was later with the National Echo, Business Times and The Star.