For the past five years, I have been hawking my ideas to newspapers on how they could survive the changing times. How they can take journalism into the 21st Century. At least for this country, or beyond.
The result was absolutely nothing done and no one listening to any of my ideas and understanding them.
I accept responsibility for my own failings in conveying my ideas. I was not and am not adept at Powerpoint presentations, and when I speak, sometimes I slur.
I have done everything I could. I left lucrative jobs so I could give newspapers one last try. In one instance, I was selling the Huffington Post model. Most print people, however, see anything and everything that has not been in place for at least 40 years as bad.
I remember explaining to a person, "We do this and this, and after a few years, we sell it for RM50 million and run."
They looked at me as if I had stepped down from a spaceship. "RM50 million?" The amount was ridiculous, right?
And so Huffington Post was sold for a few hundred million dollars. US dollars.
I began breaking up my idea into smaller ones. No one took it up, and soon Instagram was sold for a billion dollars.
I do not blame any of them. But I have also learned to shut up. I am merely a worker, a cog in the giant machinery. I am NOT the custodian of journalism or new media.
The more I speak, the more people will not listen. So I shut up. And I decided to be happy.
I am not the solution nor the problem. I refuse to be a factor, and I refuse to be a superhero. I cannot save any of them, and thinking that I could, was hubris. Arrogance.
If I am guilty of arrogance, I can say that those who are causing the decline of the traditional media as selfish. They simply want to get paid until they retire. Fuck the newbies, who will one day face a future without a job.
I no longer need validation or approval from anyone. I don't need people to tell me I'm right. I KNOW I'm right.
I am a witness, an observer, and I will no longer try to change anything.
