Mr PN Balji

Director, Asia Journalism Fellowship, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information,
Nanyang Technological University

Panel Topic Synopsis

Using Media To Create Borderless Brands

Going global is no longer confined to a physical presence in a particular territory. With the technology that is available today, having an online presence is just as important as having a physical presence. It offers a cost effective way of penetrating a new market and forms an integral part of brand strategy. Aside from the traditional print and broadcast media, online media is becoming increasingly important in brand building.

Biography

P N Balji has more than 35 years of experience in journalism — in print, TV, radio and online. He entered print journalism in 1970 when he joined the Straits Times group in Singapore as a cadet journalist for the Malay Mail. He moved to the group’s New Nation paper the following year, rising steadily up the editorial ranks.

From 1982 to 1988, he was Deputy Editor of the The Straits Times. He went on to help launch The New Paper in 1988 of which he became the editor two years later. In November 2000, he launched Today and became its Chief Executive Officer cum Editor-in-Chief.

With both The New Paper and Today, he created media history. Under his leadership, the former crossed the 100,000 mark in copies sold daily. No afternoon newspaper before that has done a daily circulation of more than 50,000 copies. With Today, he made it into a viable product opposite the grand old dame of Singapore journalism, The Straits Times. No other newspaper has survived the might of the Straits Times.

He co-hosts a weekly current affairs programme on Channel News Asia called Talking Point and helms a fortnightly radio programme, Beyond The News. As for his online work, Balji is a guest writer for the theonlinecitizen.

Outside Singapore, he was the project leader for the conversion of The New Straits Times from a broadsheet to a tabloid in KL, helped revamp the Indian weekly, The Week, and did a prototype of a 40-page newspaper for women for the Hindustan Times in New Delhi.

Currently, he is director of the Asia Journalism Fellowship and adjunct associate professor at the communications school at the Nanyang Technological University.