Kota Kinabalu: Today (March 1) marks the 60th anniversary of the Daily Express, and Sabah Publishing House Sdn Bhd (SPH) Managing Director Datuk Clement Yeh is confident of better days ahead for Sabah’s only heritage paper.
The paper, which styles itself as “Sabah’s Local Voice” which has won many national press awards and achieved a rare world scoop, debuted well before Malaysia was born – thanks to the vision of founder-publisher, late Tan Sri Yeh Pao Tzu on March 1, 1963.
“The print media is not a sunset industry due to the presence of social media as predicted by many. The increased demand for newsprint in the US, Europe and many other countries now indicates that the print media is making a comeback,” he said.
Clement believes the main reason is due to the trust factor of the print media.
“Social media is full of fake news and readers around the world have come to realise that they can best rely on the print media for balanced, fair and accurate reporting,” he said.
Daily Express’ inaugural issue on March 1, 1963.
Clement, who took over as Managing Director 36 years ago in 1987, said Daily Express would not be what it is today without the vision and hard work of its founders Tan Sri Yeh Pao Tzu and Puan Sri Yeh Lim York Sham.
“My late parents laid the foundation and toiled during the paper’s infant years. Their perseverance paid off to make Daily Express what it is today,” he said.
He said the rise in cost of raw materials like newsprint and ink, among others, would be among the challenges the industry would have to face.
“The price increase in raw materials is beyond our control but we in Daily Express will not cut corners but continue to be the voice for the people, especially Sabahans.
“Daily Express serves the people without fear or favour, irrespective of their standing in society and where they are residing. That is why Daily Express has correspondents even in remote areas…to give a voice to the ordinary folks.”
SPH Deputy General Manager Dexter Yeh said Daily Express is a paper that cares and has been there to help Sabahans in need when their cries have been ignored.
“This is what drives us to carry on into the future. My grandfather and grandmother started the newspaper business by buying over OCDN for RM500 shortly after the Second World War.
“Funnily enough, he actually dropped his wallet in the toilet but still managed to close the deal. After that he founded the Sabah Times together with, among others, Tun Fuad Stephens. After leaving the Sabah Times, he started the Daily Express on March 1st, 1963, exactly 60 years ago today.
“In the 1950s-1960s my grandparents believed that independent and quality journalism is what drives a newspaper forward and that is true even till this day. With Facebook pages and TikTokers seeking likes and views without fact checking information, the news room and quality journalism is more vital than ever before,” he said.
Dexter said though the news industry is extremely tiring and challenging, Daily Express has proven that after 60 years, it is still the preferred choice of news and platform for advertisers in the region.
“We remain to be not only the leading newspaper in Sabah and Labuan but the most viewed English news website for local news compared to any newspaper/portal in the country.
“We have both made and helped to preserve Sabah’s history, cultures, traditional languages, helped develop Sabah to where it is today, saved countless wildlife and so much more over the last six decades. I am very proud of Daily Express’ role as one of Sabah’s leading institutions,” he said.
He said the Daily Express has come a long way, from its growth in social media, providing up to date breaking news, videos and investigative documentaries via Daily Express TV.
“We have more exciting news offerings planned in the future Even in advertising, we have advanced by providing video production advertising services, social media marketing, branded content creation, large marketing campaigns for large brands such as Firefly Airlines and Carlsberg, among others,” he said.
Dexter said a number of events have been planned such as a gala dinner to thank loyal readers and clients later this year.
“We would like to thank our readers and clients for all the support these past 60 years. We will continue to serve you,” he said.
For the record, Yeh was issued the licence by the colonial administration to publish the Sabah Times that started in 1954, coincidentally on his first wedding anniversary, until it merged with the expatriate-run North Borneo News to become the NBN-ST two years later. Stephens became the publisher following the merger while SPH remained the printer.
Fuad was the first Chief Editor of the infant Sabah Times and continued to do so until his Legislative Council duties and involvement in early politics led him to pass the baton to late Datuk Mohd Fauzi Patel, who was later to found the Kinabalu Times.
Patel, an Indian immigrant from Ahmedabad who was nearly deported by the British for lack of documents upon arrival in then British North Borneo in 1954, landed a job as a proof Reader within two months of setting foot and was instrumental setting up the Press and Publications unit of the Chief Minister’s Department.
The now defunct Sabah Times pioneered by the quartet of Yeh, Stephens, Chong Pak Nam and GS Kler was also the future Malaysia’s first English Language paper to be edited and managed by 100 per cent locals to whom English was not their native language.
Which is no small achievement when considering that other bigwigs like the Straits Times and Malay Mail – the peninsula’s oldest English newspapers – were edited by whites well until the 1970s.
In its 60 years, the Daily Express has won the most national press awards as well as achieved a rare world scoop with its investigative report by Clifford Santa Maria and James Sarda that led to the arrest of fugitive derivates trader that caused the collapse of Barings Bank in 1995, Nick Leeson.
The effort was hailed by the Times of London and Independent which said Leeson would have got away if not for the Daily Express of Borneo. This made it the only Malaysian newspaper to achieve a world scoop.
It is the only newspaper to date to have also won the Prime Minister’s Hibiscus Award for journalism excellence through Kan Yaw Chong for stopping a RM730 million highway-cum-bridge project in the Kinabatangan that would have displaced orang utans and elephants by the Najib administration that did not go through the Federal and State Cabinet.
Last year, the paper won the Malaysian Press Institute’s top award for Investigative Journalism for its comprehensive series on the Double six tragedy over the still unexplained deaths of Stephens and half his Berjaya Ministers in a Nomad plane crash off KK in 1976 through Chief Editor James Sarda.
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