newspaper stories

There is two side to Malaysian newspaper articles. On the one hand, the stories are so repetitive that one can merely glaze over just from looking at them. Different players, similar mise-en-scene. Especially the political news. Even the speeches by the ministers are predictable. I wonder if they all have a pool of speechwriters that they share?

On the other hand, the story that lies behind every local Malaysians news has a possibility of the invisible narrative, that could be either more thrilling or less sensational that that which the newspaper had made up. But, when one does not know the real story behind the story, it is possible to let the imagination run wild with speculation, and when you do that, the little short story or novel is born. Like Capote's "In Cold Blood".

And sometimes, there are so many layers to a possible narrative, that a plain news story can be transformed into a gothic tale of human bestiality or hidden neurosis.

Here, we have all those tabloids, where stories can be rewritten to become bestsellers, and serious news that seem to try to beat the tabloids in their game.