Dailystraits.com – The Backstory

By June Ramli

It has been a month since we started dailystraits.com. A name which I have etched in my mind since 2014. 

The name “Daily Straits” was derived from a short story that I was planning to do about the innings of working in a newspaper while I was doing a post-graduate course in creative writing at the University of Technology Sydney. 

In other words, it was supposed to be a fictional newspaper that I was going to write about which has become a reality.

You must be also wondering, why now?

What sparked all of this?

Well, to be honest, I have been on this crusade to start a news website since 2016 when I saw a husband and wife teamwork on their small-time publishing business. 

I was with them for a couple of months and managed to learn the ropes.

I moved on as soon as my learning with them peaked.

Before joining that company, I have always been associated with companies with more than 100 headcounts. 

With them, it was only five of us, including myself.

But you’d be surprised at the amount of work and the quality of work they were producing which was on par with the big boys.

I was surprised at what a lean business can do. 

It all boils down to planning and a can-do attitude. 

But being a news and business journalist, I decided to continue the learning process by moving on to a well-known British tabloid. This company is also listed on the stock exchange. 

While working with them, I learned everything about being an online journalist. 

Again the learning curve peaked and I took a break from job hunting for a while to craft out a long-awaited picture book which I have been planning for so long. 

As soon as that project was completed, I then moved on to the tabloid’s competitor, an American public listed company where I learned the art of writing headlines and sub-editing other people’s work.

It was an honour for me to do that as some of the writers were native English speakers, and here I was editing their work.

Looking back, all the experience I had with these companies albeit short was enough to give me the ammunition needed to start things off on my own.

After I finished up with the American outlet, I took another long drawn break to settle some personal matters and also travelled the world to places that I have always wanted to go but couldn’t as I was stuck in the rat race. 

Thinking back, I thank my lucky stars that I did that because, with the pandemic still in full force, there is no telling when we would be able to travel overseas again.

When I decided to go back to reality aka work, I managed to bag a gig as a news editor in another multinational American company. 

Well, that gig was helpful too as it gave me the much-needed insight for me to see how a website worked from the backend.

Everything from Omniture, to how to pick a story and what else, sending out breaking news alerts. 

This was a great job that I cherished very much but it ended in the middle of last year.

It was only after this employment, I decide to take the leap and start my own news outlet.

Especially after last year, I concluded that I didn’t want to wait any longer and just start getting this project off the ground.

And so that is how dailystraits.com got its sudden start.

It has been a month now since we started but there has been a lot of publicity on the site’s formation in Australia’s Medianet and also the formidable Telum Media.

Me and Fazleena Aziz would like to thank these companies from the bottom of our hearts as these promotions have helped us fill the site up with stories during the dry days when we didn’t have anything to offer to our readers.

Next, we would like to delve into the site’s purpose, it is designed mainly for entrepreneurs, business and career-minded folks.

We are both entrepreneurs ourselves and know that by being an entrepreneur there are so many things that we need to still learn.

And so this site would help you through all your doubts from other people’s successes. 

It is meant to inspire you, that is why we have written every story in a featured form. 

It is also a site to help people figure out their career goals through the career spotlight pieces. We will delve into the workings of each career to give you an idea of what it is really like. 

We will also feature a lot of pieces of early-stage businesses, failed businesses as we believe there is a wealth of information that we can learn from there.

We would also like to hear from people who had gone through an adverse situation (whatever it may be) and come out stronger than before. 

Women-led business, pow-wow single ladies, innovations as well as science stories. 

We hope you enjoy what we have on offer. 

Oh, and if you are pressed for time and are unable to read our articles then head on to our podcast section and listen to them. 

We will only feature our exclusives in audio format.

Once again, thanks for reading and please share our stories out as often as you can.  Love and light always.