Ruby: Traditional and new media can be existed in a mutually beneficial situation

报导 Reporters ：陈为益 Tan Wee Yi、赖星柔 Lai Xin Rou

翻译 Translators： 陈为益 Tan Wee Yi、赖星柔 Lai Xin Rou

摄影 Photographer：受访者提供 Provided by interviewees

“传统媒体与新时代媒体是相辅相成的，其中一方没有了另外一方都无法造就如今的局势。因此没有哪个更好，也没有谁是会被完全取代的。”——马新社电视华语新闻制作人魏蔼如 Ruby

“Traditional media and new-age media complement each other, and neither could have created this situation without the other. So no one is better and no one can be completely replaced.” — Producer of Chinese TV News in Bernama TV Ruby Airu Wei

踏入媒体的契机

The opportunity to step into the media industry

提到媒体这一行，很多人的第一印象都较为负面，甚至有些许父母会认为这一行比较难讨生活。也因为这样，不少家长对于孩子要选读媒体相关科系总有些许抗拒，担心孩子未来的前途“黯淡”！事实上真的如此吗？马新社电视华语新闻制作人魏蔼如（Ruby）笑说：“其实在我的年代，媒体行业的形象并没有像现在这样负面，那时候的媒体行业很让人向往。”

When it comes to the media industry, many people’s first impression is relatively negative, and some parents will think that this industry is difficult to make a living. Also because of this, many parents may be resist when their children decided to study in media related subjects, they will be worried about the future of their children. Is this really the case? Ruby, Producer of Chinese TV News in Bernama TV laughs and says, “Actually in my time, the image of the media industry was not as negative as it is now. The media industry at that time was very desirable.”

Ruby分享到，她以前的梦想是成为一名警察，因为小时候曾经看过父亲因交通违规遭警察“要钱” ，而不是开“三万”，这让她觉得非常的不公平，所以她从小就立志当警察。“中学起接触文字后，我发现自己非常喜欢文字，所以想说未来的路可以靠文字走下去。”她身体里的“媒体基因”从此开启。

Ruby shared that her dream was to be a police officer. When she was a child, she once saw her father being bribed by the police for traffic violation instead of issuing a ticket, which made her feel very unfair, so she decided to be a police officer since she was a child. “After I started writing in middle school, I found that I really enjoyed writing, so I thought I could go on writing in the future.” The “media gene” in her body was switched on.

中学毕业后，Ruby报读了大同韩新学院的广播电视电影系，之后到台湾世新大学广播电视电影系完成学士学位。

After graduating from middle school, Ruby enrolled in the Diploma of Broadcasting, in One World HanXin College, and then completed her bachelor’s degree in the Degree of Radio, Television and Film in Taiwan Shixin University.

“新旧媒体是相辅相成的，没有一方会取代另外一方。”——魏蔼如
“Old media and new media complement each other, and no one replaces the other. ” —— Ruby

多姿多采的职业路程

A colorful career path

Ruby的媒体路可说跌宕起伏，却精彩充实。先是于2004年进入光明日报当普通地方新闻记者，7年后到纽西兰打工旅行一年，回马后加入ntv7电视台担任制作助理兼电视记者，1年8个月合约期满后，她开始转战网络媒体。

Ruby’s media journey is full of twists and turns. In 2004, she joined Guang Ming Daily as a local news reporter. Seven years later, she went to New Zealand to work and travel for one year. After returning to Malaysia in one year, she joined NTV7 TV as a production assistant and TV reporter.

Ruby记得，当时本地一家网络平台正准备转型成有自创新闻内容的网络媒体平台，她便成了其中一员开荒牛。她坦言，要将平台从“吹水站”性质转换到有新闻内容的高质量平台，需要整个团队去分工并经营，但受限于资金和人力不足，自创内容目标无法达成，她只待了三个月便离开了。

“过后，我回到大同韩新学院工作， 2018年进入马新社当新闻制作人，直到现在。”

Ruby remembers that at that time, a local network platform was preparing to transform into an online media platform with its own news content, and she became one of them. She said frankly that to transform the platform from a “gossiping” to a high-quality platform with news content, it required the whole team to divide the work and operate. However, due to the lack of funds and manpower, the self-created content goal could not be achieved, so she only stayed for three months and then left.

“After that, I went back to work at One World Han Xin College. In 2018, I joined the Bernama News as a news producer, and I have been working since then.”

从传统媒体到数码媒体，从文字、网络到影像，16年间，Ruby不但没有放弃媒体工作，而且越战越勇，对新闻的热诚也更加炙热。

From traditional media to digital media, from text, network to video, in the past 16 years, Ruby did not give up on media work, but also stepped forward bravely and became more passionate about news.

16年间经历过新旧媒体的时代替换，魏蔼如依旧对新闻媒体充满热诚也保持炙热。
After 16 years of transition between old and new media, Ruby is still passionate about the media industry.

不断地学习与自我调适

Continuous learning and self-adjustment

数码时代来临，Ruby也深刻的感受到传统媒体转型的必要。

在念大学时，Ruby接受的是传统媒体专业训练，毕业后也一直在传统媒体工作，自然不会接受任何的网络培训。“那时候我们并不需要去烦恼或思考未来要不要走网络媒体’的问题，即使是就职过的电视台有网络平台，也不过只是为了让观众有多一个平台选择，所以更新的速度也比较慢，通常是新闻发布之后的几天才会将之发布于网络上。”

她也坦诚道，传统媒体比较守旧，而且忙碌的工作让他们没有余力去思考或学习新的趋势，也没有特别想去学新东西的心思。“那时候，谁也没想到未来的网络会那么发达。”

With the advent of the digital era, Ruby has also deeply felt the necessity of the transformation of traditional media.

In college, Ruby received professional training in traditional media, and has been working in traditional media since graduation. Naturally, she did not receive any training in digital news. “At that time, we don’t need to worry or think about the future of being a digital media or not. Even if they do have an online platform, it’s just to give viewers one more platform to choose from, so updates are slow, usually a few days after the news is released.”

She also admits that traditional media tend to be conservative, and their busy schedules leave them with little time to think or learn about new trends, and little desire to learn anything new. “At the time, no one had any idea that internet would be so developed in future.”

最早感受到网络无力感是离开电视台后进入网络媒体公司时。Ruby回忆道，在加入公司初期，该网络平台本是一个让用户自由发布尔日常讨论内容的低成本网站，因为老板认为这类型的内容无法长久运作，因此想要转型做新闻内容，摆脱“低素质”的“媒体农场”标签。

The first time I felt powerless was when I left TV and joined an online media company. Ruby recalls that when she joined the company, the online platform was originally a low-cost site where users could freely publish their daily and discussion content. The boss thought that this type of content would not work for long, so he wanted to transform it into news content and get rid of the “low-quality” “media farm” label.

“但转型并非易事，自创新闻内容更不简单，记者采访后需要团队讨论共同制作，并不是单打独斗就能完成的。但是当时整个队团中，只有我有新闻经验，尽管我坚决想要试一试，但事与愿违，最后也没有特别做了什么成绩。”

“But the transformation is not easy, let alone the creation of news content. After reporters’ interview, a team needs to discuss and jointly produce news content, which cannot be accomplished by one person alone. But I was the only one with any news experience at that time. Although I wanted to have a try, it didn’t work out and I didn’t do anything special.”

她感叹，一个 “吹水”网站即使生产了自己的新闻，也还是改变不了本质，它的使用者依旧把网站当作“吹水站” ，制作的新闻也没有引起太大的讨论，流量很低。在流量胜于一切的网络媒体，Ruby感受到了自己的不足，所以最后只好选择离开，再次踏上自我摸索的路途。

She said that even if a “gossip” website produces its own news, it still does not change the nature of the site. Its users still treat the website as a best place for gossiping and the news produced does not cause much discussion and cause a low traffic. Which the traffic is the superior to everything else in the digital media era. Ruby felt its own inadequacy, so finally had to choose to leave and set foot on the road of self-exploration again.

这段历程给Ruby的感悟是：新闻并不是单打独斗就能创造出来的，尤其在网络发达的这个年代，一个团队的互助是更为重要的。

Ruby说道，面对数码转型，除了团队的自我提升，新闻公司媒体也必须提供员工培训，才能起到互助互惠、相辅相成的正面效应。

What Ruby learned from this experience is that news cannot be created by a single person, especially in this era of developed network, the mutual assistance of a team is important.

Ruby said that in the transformation of digital media, in addition to the self-improvement of the team, the news company media must also provide staff training. Only by doing it, the positive effect of mutual benefit and complement each other will only be achieve.

魏蔼如在电视台作为记者时与主播连线的画面。
The picture of Ruby connecting with the news anchor when she was a reporter in TV station.

不会被对方取代的新旧媒体

Old and new media that will not be replaced by each other

问到网络媒体会否成为未来唯一新闻接收的管道时，她不假思索的说，这个问题很多人都问过，但至今没有明确的答案。 “就像我，也不是一个会买报纸来看的人，但是当我在选择要不要相信一个新闻时，我还是会选择相信正统媒体，传统媒体亲力亲为生产的新闻是比较可靠的。”

When asked if online media will be the only conduit for receiving news in the future, she said without thinking, this question has been asked by many people, but so far there is no clear answer “Just like me, I am not a person who will buy a newspaper to read, but when I am choosing what news to trust, I will still choose to trust the traditional media, after all, the news produced by the traditional media in person is more reliable.”

她乐观的说：“我不认为传统媒体会完全被网络取代，因为你不看报纸，不看电视新闻，不代表其他人不看。”Ruby回忆到，之前有人向她反馈过，平常忙碌的生活已经让他们没有办法去追踪又快又多的网络新闻，更来不及去发现在网络上传播的所有大小事件。比起网络新闻，他们会更喜欢坐在电视机前，利用电视新闻报导的15分钟，去观看最完整也最为重要的每日新闻。由此看来，新旧媒体的使用还是会根据个人的生活习惯而产生差异，因此也不存在传统媒体即将被完全取代的事情。

She says optimistically, “I don’t think traditional media will be completely replaced by the digital news, just because you don’t read newspapers or watch TV news doesn’t mean that other people don’t.” Ruby recalled that some people had told her before that their busy life had made them unable to track the fast and numerous network news, let alone discover all the big and small events spread on the network. Instead of online news, they prefer to sit in front of the TV and use the 15 minutes of TV news to watch the most complete and important daily news. From this point of view, the use of old and new media will still vary according to personal living habits, so there is no such thing as the complete replacement of traditional media.

Ruby也分享说，其实新旧媒体与媒体行业里的新旧媒体人一样，都是需要相辅相成彼此成就。她举例说：“比如近日澳洲新闻媒体业要求谷歌（Google）及脸书（Facebook）付费给当地新闻媒体，因为是新闻媒体的资产内容为上述网站带来高流量绩效。网站的大量用户使得新闻媒体的内容得到高度关注；而新闻媒体的高质量内容也刺激了该网站的用户人数升高，这正是互相利用、一起成长的最好体现。

Ruby also shared that old and new media, like old and new media people in the media industry, need to complement each other. “For example, the Australian media industry recently asked Google (Google) and Facebook (Facebook) to pay local news outlets because it is the content of the news assets that drives the high traffic performance of these sites,” she said. The site’s large number of users makes news media content highly visible; The high quality of the news media’s content has also driven the number of users on the site, which is the best example of mutual use and mutual growth.

她补充，网络发展只是让媒体新闻多了一个发展的渠道，传统媒体的内容高度传播才使得现在的新媒体局势更为声势浩大，因此新旧媒体其实是同时在操作，也同时在往更好的方向在发展的。

She added that the development of the Internet only provides one more channel for the development of media news. It is the highly spread of traditional media that makes the current situation of new media even more powerful. Therefore, the old and new media are actually operating at the same time and developing in a better direction.

Ruby作为新闻记者时的工作照。
Ruby at work as a journalist.

给未来媒体人的话

Words for future media practitioner

最后， Ruby给予未来的媒体人的首要建议是提升语言能力。“我们的母语中文固然重要，但在多元种族的马来西亚，能够运用马来文以及英文与人沟通的能力也是非常必要的。”Ruby坦言，在马来西亚的媒体人，无论是技术职位，前台或是制作人，每一个岗位的语言能力，无论是书写还是沟通都是非常重要的。语言的掌握除了是职业上的必要条件，更是我们的一个机会，是能够让我们将自己的能力拓展到更多圈子或是其他国家的一个途径。

To conclude the interview, Ruby’s top piece of advice to future media personnel is to improve their language skills.  “While our mother tongue Chinese is important, the ability to communicate with people in Malay as well as English is also very essential in a multi-racial Malaysia.” Ruby admits that for media professionals in Malaysia, whether it is a technical position, front office or producer, language skill ,writing and communication are both very important in every position. Apart from being a professional necessity, language mastery is also an opportunity for us to expand our abilities to more circles or other countries.

此外，新闻辨识能力也非常关键。Ruby说，在3C时代下成长的我们，日常里充斥着许多新闻，因此学习如何去分辨真假新闻的能力也是非常重要的。她表示，学会分辨的能力其实非常苦难，需要经验的累积以及个人的感官体悟结合才能将之做好。因此，不断地学习与经验的累积才是最重要的。

In addition, the ability to distinguish news is also crucial. Ruby says that as we’ve grown up in the 3C world, we’re fed a lot of news on a daily basis, so it’s important to learn how to tell the difference between real and fake news.She said that learning the ability to distinguish the fake news is actually very difficult and requires a combination of experience and personal perception to do it well. Therefore, continuous learning and experience accumulation is the most important thing.

她总结：“东西是学不完的，虽然我在这个行业已经有很长一段时间了，但是在这个日新月异的时代，每天都有很大挑战去面对。我们也要一直去学习，去分辨才能懂得一些方法在这个行业中生存。”

She concluded, “There is no end to what we can learn, although I have been in this industry for a long time, but in this era of rapid change, there are great challenges to face every day. We also have to keep learning and discerning in order to know some ways to survive in this industry.”