There’s a particular kind of courage required to be a journalist these days, and it’s rarely the kind of glamorous, jet-setting, pulse-raising kind you see in Hollywood movies. Working in print is more about the stubborn bravery of continuing to find, research and painstakingly craft stories into articles that, hopefully, people will find interesting enough to stop their day for and read.
The truest practitioners of this craft are often freelancers: the indefatigable hunters and gatherers of narrative who spend their days chasing ideas that may or may not pay the rent. They’re often found knocking on unfamiliar doors, sending hopeful e-mails to strangers and sitting across café tables from people they’ve just met, somehow coaxing honesty, humour or heartbreak from a conversation that began with polite small talk.
The truest practitioners of this craft are often freelancers: the indefatigable hunters and gatherers of narrative who spend their days chasing ideas that may or may not pay the rent.
It’s a strange profession. One part detective work, one part anthropology, one part empathy. You search for the thread that might lead somewhere interesting — a rumour, a person, a moment — and then follow it. There’s the legwork: the calls, the research, the reading between the lines. Then the delicate art of the interview itself, that small social miracle where a journalist must be at once curious, charming, discreet and persistent enough to make someone open up.
And then comes the writing — the invisible labour people don’t see. The long hours spent shaping a story so that it flows, sparkles and holds attention in a world where attention has become a rare currency. Every sentence must work. Every paragraph must pull the reader gently forward. The facts and the tone must be right, the story alive.
All this, of course, is happening while the ground beneath us shifts daily. Newsrooms shrink, budgets evaporate and the vast tidal wave of social media and artificial intelligence threatens to flatten nuance into noise. Anyone can post. Anyone can publish. But not everyone can write like my friend and colleague Ufrieda Ho could. She was a regular contributor to Sunday Times Lifestyle over many years. For her, crafting a story was far more demanding than simply producing content. It required patience, judgment, integrity and a relentless curiosity about other people’s lives. It required showing up, asking great questions, caring enough to get the story right, and talented enough to make you want to read it.
For Ufrieda I have nothing but appreciation and gratitude; for her legwork, for chasing the great stories, for believing that stories matter, for always being a pleasure to work with, but mostly for her kindness, which radiated from her like it was the very core of her being. She will be sadly missed.
