What I have learnt after a decade in news

The story is not bigger than your humanity and the biggest prize is the feeling of having done some good.

- Danson Cheong

Block 9 of the Singapore General Hospital along Outram Road is an address that has been seared into my memory.

This is the Health Sciences Authority's mortuary – the place where people would go to collect the bodies of their relatives who had an unnatural or violent death, or if the cause of death was unknown.

Years ago, as a rookie on the crime beat of this newspaper, I spent many mornings outside this building asking people who were there if they would tell us how their loved ones had died.

It did not matter if it was a murder case, traffic accident or if the person had died in some other mishap, SGH Block 9 was where you would probably be able to find someone related to them – whether an immediate family member, friend or relative.

The challenge, and it was a daunting one for a newbie, was persuading one of these people to give you a story.

Writing this today, I say with no small relief that I'm thankful I no longer have to spend my mornings at Outram (The Straits Times has also stopped sending reporters there daily), but those early mortuary shifts were just one way that this trade has left its mark on me.

2024 marks 10 years since I became a full-time journalist, and since it's the end of the year, I've been reflecting on the decade gone by.

Since this is the season also for year-end lists, here are three lessons I learnt after a decade in the business of news.

DON'T LET THE JOURNALIST MUSCLE OUT THE HUMAN BEING

To be honest, I dreaded the mortuary assignments.

I understood why it had to be done; for starters, it is in the public interest to bring to attention the crimes that happen, and to put a human face to these stories.

Yet there was also something that felt deeply invasive and transactional about asking people to recount details about a loved one's death at a time of grief and loss, and then turning those emotions into stories that drew clicks and eyeballs.