KUALA LUMPUR – Sandakan-based journalist Rebecca Chong has bagged two gold and two merit awards at the Kinabalu Press Awards last weekend, marking the first awards won for Scoop.
Chong won one gold In the Sports Journalism Award category with her story on Nur Aishah Rofina Aling, a 24-year-old sprinter from Sandakan with aspirations to be the fastest woman in Malaysia.
Her second gold was in the Environmental Journalism category with an investigative piece titled ‘How safe is Sandakan’s water? Concerns over run-off from plantations, mills resurface’.
The article questioned whether chemicals from oil palm plantations and mills were polluting Sg Segaliud, as evidenced by episodes of dead fish in the water. The river is primary water source for Sandakan’s population.
Chong won merit awards for two more articles, on the plight of Pulau Jambongan villagers living without electricity for decades, and on a young Kadazandusun teacher’s mission to keep the native language alive. These two were for the Feature and News Feature category, and Entertainment, Culture and Arts Reporting category.
In all, Chong, who is now a freelance journalist, took home awards in four out of the six English categories at the Kinabalu Press Awards.
Chong, whose journalism career began in 2012 with local Sabah news portal, Insightsabah.com, said she felt privileged to be able to tell stories about Sandakan’s issues at the national level.
“Sabah has so many stories to tell, but to this day, news penetration at the national level remains somewhat limited. The people of Sabah deserve to have their voices heard too, and I was glad to have been part of a team open to telling the Sabah narrative,” she said after receiving the awards.
Her recent achievements are added notches to her belt, having gained two golds previously in the Entertainment, Culture and Arts Reporting and Sports Journalism categories, as well as three merits in the 2023 Kinabalu Press Awards.
In 2022, she also received six merit awards in categories such as News Reporting and Environmental Journalism, and in 2021, she won a gold in the Sabah Covid-19 News Award as well as two merits. – October 1, 2024