SINGAPORE – Your job involves reporting on crimes and murders – do you ever get nightmares?
This was one of the questions posed to Straits Times crime correspondent David Sun by 14-year-old Dharmini Ramesh from Cedar Girls’ Secondary School during a question-and-answer session with Mr Sun earlier this week.
His answer? No, because he was quite young – 19 years old – when he first started reporting, and had to “grow up very quickly to go about my work”, said Mr Sun, 31.
The session was part of the inaugural The Straits Times Introduction to Journalism, a programme for youth, held at SPH Media on June 3 and 4.
Thirty-four students participated in the programme. The Secondary 2 and 3 students were selected from 12 schools, such as Bartley Secondary School, Beatty Secondary School and Raffles Girls’ School.
The programme aims to reach out to the community and showcase what ST does, while building students’ interest in journalism and news.
ST editor Jaime Ho said: “Nothing gives us greater joy than having the youngest members of our community here in the newsroom, to see how we work, and why we do what we do.
“I certainly hope they had fun in the process and that they will continue to understand the relevance of news to their daily lives.”
As part of the programme, the students were introduced to different forms of journalism at ST, including photo and travel journalism.