Am I a journalist first, or a blogger?
Jul29

Tags

Related Posts

Share This

Am I a journalist first, or a blogger?

Posted on Jul 29, 2010 in Personal | 16 comments

I was invited to speak at the Asian Bloggers and Social Media Conference at Berjaya Times Square, as one of four local bloggers sharing our experiences.

This afternoon, I will be talking at the Asian Bloggers and Social Media Conference in Berjaya Times Square. Below is my Prezi.com presentation that I will be using to assist me in my talk. The conference was held on July 28 and 29, and included such speakers at former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohammad, AirAsia CEO Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes, bloggers from The Phillipines and India as well as my friends Joyce the Kinkybluefairy, Kenny Sia and Beautifulnara.

I posted the presentation below a couple of hours before my talk was due to take place so that anyone at the conference who had access to the Internet could view my presentation as I went along. I am posting this here first so that participants of the conference can view my Prezi during my session, or immediately after. I will elaborate more on my points later tonight or tomorrow.

Unlike my usual talks, I decided not to focus too much on the social media aspect for two reasons. First of all, this was already a social media conference meaning that even if any of the delegates were not yet familiar with the tools etc, they should, in theory, already be keen to learn more about it (and therefore, no evangelising necessary). Secondly, there were going to be three other Malaysian bloggers speaking – all of whom are much more successful than I am – so I wanted to explore something different.

Me talking

Thanks for the picture above, Khairul.

I chose instead to talk about journalism, and what the journey is like for a journalist in the age of social media. To lead into my discussion, I asked the question: Am I a journalist first, or a blogger?

That question, in a way, was a trick question in that I don’t even identify solely as a blogger. Yes, I do blog but I see my “dabbling” in social media as much more than that.

On that note, I present to you my presentation. Like my other Prezi’s, you might not know what is going on right away but when looking at it (if you’re interested lah), note how I have split the two into separate circles – but allowed them to overlap a little.

If you have any questions, please post them in the comments section, I will be happy to discuss further. :)

Am I a journalist first, or a blogger? on Prezi

Some of you who were at the conference yesterday will remember that I was interrupted during my talk on the panel to discuss Freedom of Speech in Blogging: Finding the harmony. This was due to an arrival of a VIP (to be honest, I didn’t know whether to laugh at the situation, or be offended). But when the moderator announced after I finished talking (I was the last speakeron the panel which included the likes of Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir) that due to time constraints there wouldn’t be a Q&A session.

The panel

Curi-ed this picture from TianChad.

Which is weird considering that’s what discussions should be about. I did take to the mike later and asked those who have questions or have comments about the issue to get the discourse going online on Twitter, Facebook and blogs. So if you guys had anything to say, please do so in my comment section as well, we can get a discussion going. Cheers!

5.25pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)