In this episode of Splice Pink, we speak with Yolanda Ma, a lecturer at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong. ChatGPT describes her as “an influential figure in the fields of digital policy and global partnerships.” We agree.

With a vast career in international development, data, and journalism, Yolanda recently won approval to make AI training a mandatory subject for the masters program in journalism. In this podcast, she talks about why she pushed for it, and what's needed in journalism education today.

Philippine journalist Beatrice Go launched Atleta Filipina in January 2024 — a feat for the sports reporter turned solo media entrepreneur. Atleta Filipina serves as a beacon for women's sports in the Philippines, or, as she put it in this interview, "the purpose is for women to have a future in sports." She spoke about how the first couple of months have gone, the needs she wants to meet, and some of the partnerships she's trying to forge.

Three years ago, disappointed with the legacy media landscape, Kassy Cho started Almost, an Instagram-first news startup focused on young people. The Taipei-based journalist saw an opportunity to deliver news to both Chinese and English audiences who were left underserved — and ignored — by mainstream media. In this episode, she spoke to us about the opportunities to serve younger audiences and ways to monetise that.

These are some of the best sessions from Splice Beta 2023. This episode features December Khaing.

Exile Hub started soon after the coup in Myanmar when hundreds of journalists started flowing across into Thailand for refuge. Exile Hub's multifaceted approach includes psychosocial support, offering shelter and mental health services, as well as personal safety, border safety, and digital safety workshops. 

At Splice Beta 2023, December Khaing talked about the organisation’s work and the challenges faced by Myanmar’s journalists living in exile. 

These are some of the best sessions from Splice Beta 2023. This episode features Your Tita Baby and Jen Aquino.

In response to the rise of fake news on social media, Philippine media startup Probe launched a fact-checking campaign called Tsek/Eks. To engage the younger demographic, they collaborated with influencers, in an initiative that was unheard of in the media space. One such partnership was with Your Tita Baby, a drag queen content creator. Your Tita Baby emphasised her unique perspective as a Gen Xer with a foot in both the millennial and baby boomer generations.

We're putting together some of the best sessions from Splice Beta 2023. This episode features Joey Chung of TNL Mediagene in Taiwan. Joey talks to the Beta 2023 crowd about his strategy of acquiring media companies — as a media company.

“Our overarching strategy has resulted in 50 to 60 million monthly unique readers across multiple languages. Regarding monetisation, one-third stems from media advertising, another third from data analytics, AI, SaaS, and tech services, and the remaining third from e-commerce, agency communications, paid events, and memberships.”

We're putting together some of the best sessions from Splice Beta 2023. This episode features Tanmoy Goswami of Sanity by Tanmoy. Tanmoy talks to a large crowd about how — and why — he builds products for his mental health journalism startup.

He also discusses his unique approach to success metrics, emphasising the importance of consistency and recognising that people support the creator rather than the product

We're putting together some of the best sessions from Splice Beta 2022. This episode features Nishant Lalwani, the CEO of the International Fund for Public Interest Media, which exists to enable media to work for democracy. Nishant spoke to why the fund was necessary now, and discussed the gaps between the funding that journalism needs — and what has so far been available.

We're rounding up some of the best sessions we've had at Splice Beta 2022. This episode features Zara Seidler, the co-founder of The Daily Aus, which is a media startup based in Sydney. Zara talks about how TDA has built a modern news business for young people on Instagram, where they have more than 425,000 followers.

Jom has been on the Singapore media scene for less than five months. The digital magazine, as its co-founder Sudhir Vadaketh explains, is trying to fill a unique position in explaining Singapore through a critical eye to both local and foreign audiences. Perhaps more interestingly, it's on the scene at a time when government agencies are more open to engaging with small and independent media startups.

Anupama Chandrasekaran is an audio documentary producer at Newsreel Asia, based in Chennai. We spoke about the opportunities behind audio stories and the challenges of building a documentary business.

Devina Heriyanto is the membership manager at Project Multatuli, a public service journalism collective in Indonesia.

In this Splice Pink episode, we spoke with Devina shortly after we met her at Splice Beta in Chiang Mai in November 2022. She talked us through the intricacies of bringing ‘depressing’ reporting around marginalised peoples to a community that supports Project M’s mission.

What makes a creator different from a journalist?

In our latest Splice Pink episode, we spoke with Amanda Cua, a newsletter media creator in the Philippines. Her daily email — BackScoop — keeps you updated on the top stories in tech and business in Southeast Asia.

“One big focus I have is distribution. And I don’t think that most journalists have that in their job description. How do I get this to more people? What kind of platform should I be using?”

Myanmar's media, fleeing the military's crackdown on journalists, have found a new home in Chiang Mai.

The creation of this new hub represents an important milestone for this region. For the first time, we're seeing an ecosystem built around media startups coming together in Southeast Asia.

Splice's co-founder Alan Soon talked to Sonny Swe, the founder of Frontier Myanmar, about how Frontier made the move, and what's in store for 2022.

Coconuts just turned 10. We spoke with Byron Perry, the founder and CEO of Coconuts, about the decade of lessons he's had in building one of Asia's most recognisable media startups. And they're finally making a profit this year.

In this episode, we're talking with Simon Vincent, a journalist-turned-game-developer. Simon is the co-founder of Playlogue, a game development services team based in Singapore. He talks about the lessons he's learned about the transformation of media from what began as a board game.

Five years in, FactorDaily pivoted to a non-profit entity this year. Its cofounder Pankaj Mishra figured the change would allow him the freedom to stay closer to mission: "To make sense of technology’s impact on the society around us."

"No ads. No paywalls. No venture capital funding," Pankaj proclaims on the website. That means some hard decisions on building new business models in an incredibly tough space.

One more thing: Pankaj has also demolished the traditional news cycle. He and his team will only publish when there's a story.

FactorDaily is the anti-media, and that's why we love it.

How do you introduce change into a newsroom? Jane Mahoney of Private Media in Melbourne, Australia, has a five-step plan.

1. What problem are you solving?

2. Educate everyone, make sure they understand the products you're bringing in.

3. Empower everyone, make sure they understand their place in the business and how they can help drive everyone towards success.

4. Have some goals in place to actually measure what success looks like.

5. Create a team of advocates

We've been following Jane Mahoney over the past couple of weeks as she sets up her new reader revenue team at Private Media in Australia.

In this episode, she talks about how to market a news subscription product — running campaigns, working with editorial, and testing.

Hosted and produced by Rishad Patel, co-founder of Splice.

MDIF launched a $1 million fund to support early stage media startups around the world. We spoke with Mohamed Nanabhay, Deputy CEO at Media Development Investment Fund about the fund's objective, and why they're launching it now.

Hosted and produced by Alan Soon, co-founder of Splice.