I received news of former
colleague M Husairy Othman’s death via an FB posting of fellow friends last
night.
Husairy was pretty much an
out and out journalist of old; with a good knack for coming out with great news
pieces from the most mundane of everyday tit bits.
Like me, he was also a
former Sun reporter before working with NST. We sort of rejoined, urm,
colleague-ness after I opted to join the then-newly opened Malay Mail Ipoh
branch back in 2004.
The last memory etched in
my mind of Husairy was the “professional dispute” we had on a particular
assignment which I strongly thought was way too slanted and too partisanship to
be given much weight and coverage, to which he disagreed.
I covered the function all
the same as I know reporters are supposed to be objective anyway.
Just felt that I had to
speak my mind as it was during the whole ding dong days when Perak went without
a state government after Barisan Nasional lost its majority to the then loosely
set up Pakatan Rakyat.
I left NST soon after that
on the pretext of joining my better half who got a job in Shah Alam. Truth was
I couldn’t stomach the one-sidedness of NST anymore.
I digress.
As far as I can tell,
Husairy’s commitment in getting frontpage / leadpage news items was second to
none.
Perhaps it was because of
this passion that he smoked like a chimney, drinks hard when he did and had his
fair share of info-kakis of dubious nature in his pursuit of stories.
We were not that close,
but there was still a pang of sadness when I read of his passing away.
RIP Bro. I will sedekah an
Al Fatihah every now and then as I do to my other friends who have passed the
mortal coil much earlier.
Hope this token prayer reaches
you in the afterlife.
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