reporter course 101 - NOT a writer

Man provides sexual services instead of traditional healing

JOHOR BARU - USING bomoh services as a front, a man provided sexual services instead of traditional healing services.

The Indonesian's operations were uncovered when enforcement officers from the state Immigration Department here raided his house in Taman Tun Ungku Aminah on Wednesday.

During the raid at 5.40pm, the officers discovered three rooms in the house that had been converted for sexual activities between customers and sex workers, believed to be Indonesians. 'Each customer is charged RM100 (S$42) per session and we believe the medium has been running the sex services for more than a year,' said state Immigration Department deputy assistant director (II) Amzari A Jalil.

He said the house, which is behind a Chinese temple, was secluded and only regular customers were familiar with the place. Mr Amzari said prior to the raid, his officers went undercover under Ops Sayang to investigate vice activities in the area.

He added that they arrested the 40-year-old medium and two sex workers aged 27 and 30. Another sex worker managed to escape. During the same operation, the department raided an illegal karaoke centre here and detained nine Indonesians and a Filipino aged between 25 and 40, believed to be sex workers.

The department also detained a 62-year-old local man for trying to prevent department officers from carrying out their duties. He said the centre, located near a shopping complex on the Skudai highway, was also believed to be a gambling den. -- THE STAR/ANN

when you read the above news article, did you have the impression that MEN(Gigolos) are serving the LADY customers? why? because the title says
Man provides sexual services instead of traditional healing

even though the man in question is an individual, but the mind quickly associates it with gigolos. and the article further blurs the line when it only mentions "sex workers" without identifying the sex of the workers.

sometimes the reporters themselves are very lousy in conveying their info to the readers, especially some of the sports writers who tries to be fancy in their writing.... starting from middle of nowhere, but forgets to provide vital info like "what sports", "where", "when" and the result of the game..... assuming that the readers have all these knowledge.....

obviously, these reporters did not attend any reporters' course or the course itself does not place any importance o imparting the essential info to the readers.

for one thing, reporter must be a reporter first and foremost before being any writer(or author) whose intention is to attract readers. the reporter can use the headline to attract his readers, but the content must be clear and informative.... otherwise, it loses it value of informing.

another usual overlook by a reporter is using pronouns in a sentence ambiguosly (eg he helps him to make him into a strong person), who is 'he' and 'him' the reporter is trying to refer to?

thirdly, the when reporting on people's names, if in chinese, should put the chinese characters in brackets. because the news will be of more concern with the chinese readers, who may not be familiar with the english names.