Uniquely TNP

At The New Paper, we are proud that we have always done so much with so little all these years since our first print edition on July 26, 1988.

What we lacked in manpower, we made up for with imagination, enthusiasm and dedication. And so, as The New Paper grew, you grew with us, every step of the way. We were the daily miracle. The little paper that could. And you have always been there with us.

Here is a brief look back at what makes us, us.

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Crime pays

We were unashamedly big on crime. Not one to just rely on official statements, we worked our sources and pounded the ground near and far to deliver you sensational news scoops. Here are just three.

Anthony Ler, the killer (May 17, 2001)

Hanged in December 2002, Ler had hired a youth to kill his wife Annie Leong while they were in the midst of a divorce. We were the only media Ler opened up to, days before his arrest at Madam Leong's wake. Our four-hour interview with him gave readers a telling insight into the great pretender who convincingly played the part of a mournful husband, shedding well-rehearsed crocodile tears over the loss of his wife.

Death by tigers (Nov 14, 2008)

On Nov 13, 2008, Malaysian contract worker Nordin Montong, a cleaner, deliberately climbed into the white tiger enclosure at the Singapore Zoo and was mauled to death by its three inhabitants. We stayed on top of the shocking news with gripping details from many witnesses, as well as exclusive sequence pictures and video footage of the entire incident.

The reports were picked up around the world, and our paper won a Society of Publishers in Asia award for Excellence in the Reporting Breaking News category in 2009.

Huang Na (2004)

Just eight years old, Huang Na's life was cruelly cut short by vegetable packer Took Leng How in October 2004. We closely tracked the unfolding tragedy from the time she went missing until Took was brought to justice, with many exclusive stories along the way.

We even visited her Houfeng village home in Putian, China, to show how her parents had moved on after her death and what they did with the $126,000 donation collected from Singaporeans.

Fun, moving videos

The New Paper's online team has produced many memorable videos. With a lean team, we presented compelling stories that are still getting views on our YouTube channel. We had fun with pop acts and captured grand events.

But the videos that had the most impact were those that focused on people, such as the moving story of Mr Muhammad Khairul Ikhwan, who let us document his journey through palliative care, and Ms Jane Tan, "the silent fighter" who showed incredible courage in the face of the degenerative disease she suffered from.

Our Breaking Fast series, which highlighted how Muslims from all walks of life marked Ramadan - from a delivery rider to a recent convert, from expats to a mother struggling with her son's autism - still garners generous comments online.

Social, with a heart

Ever the heartlander, The New Paper has, over the years, delivered heart-rending stories of the Everyman.

You may remember Madam Farzana Abdul Razak, the former air stewardess who bravely pulled passengers to safety from a burning Singapore Airlines flight that crashed during take-off from Taipei's then Chiang Kai-shek Airport.

Or the late Ms Maria Lee Kwai How, who endured physical and emotional pain as a result of acute neurofibromatosis, a disfiguring and incurable genetic disorder. Or Miss Ng Poh Peng, who we christened "Baby Poh Peng". She bravely dealt with congenital ichthyosis, a rare hereditary skin disorder that causes her skin to flake.

They were our everyday heroes, like Mr Heng Yeow Pheow, the selfless construction foreman and family man who perished under the rubble of the Nicoll Highway collapse during the construction of the Circle Line in 2004, after making sure his eight trapped co-workers escaped safely ahead of him.

Whoever it was, we told their stories in the only way we knew how, with empathy and support.

In the thick of the action

One begged on the streets, another stalked tourists and tried to follow them into their hotel rooms, while a third spent a night in a Johor Baru jail cell.

We never shirked from putting our reporters in uncomfortable situations if it means giving readers a fresh, first-person perspective on the news.

Prisoner for a night (Sept 24, 2005)

Former TNP reporter and news editor Andre Yeo spent a night at the 130-year-old Johor Baru Prison (Penjara Johor Baru) as part of a promotion of its Life Behind Bars programme.

Mosquitoes, cockroaches and boredom aside, he also had to use the bucket system - twice.

At the end of it, he had slept all of two hours.

Stalker for a day (Sept 26, 1992)

In a test of local hotel security following the rape of two Japanese tourists in their hotel room by a man who had followed them there, then reporter Dave Ang went to six top hotels to see how easily he could gain access to the rooms as an outsider. He was eventually caught while attempting to climb over a parapet wall at the Raffles Hotel.

Beggar for a day (May 14, 1991)

Beggars were being flown in from overseas by syndicates to make up to $100 a day here. Are Singaporeans suckers for the scam? Then sub-editor Herbert Fernandez slipped into an old sarong and a dirty shirt to beg in Serangoon Road, Chinatown and Raffles Place to find out. He collected $5.10 in total and donated it to the Community Chest.

Games at NUS increasingly sexualised, say students (July 26, 2016)

Chatting and meeting up with sex predators online, posing as a student interested in buying a fake degree from a local university, and buying a box of Viagra pills from back lane peddlers may sound dangerous.

But they were just some of the things our reporters did in the name of investigative journalism, or "sting ops".

Even right up to the last few years, young TNP reporters such as David Sun were still prowling - online and offline - to bring you explosive exposes, like how undergrads were pressured to play inappropriate games at university camps.

When the going gets tough

Not one to shy away from political hot spots around the world, we have dispatched our reporters to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Jordan, and conflict zones such as East Timor and Southern Thailand.

In December 2003, then TNP photojournalists Zaihan Mohamed Yusof and Mohd Ishak scored an exclusive peek into the workings of a "JI school", a madrasah set up by Jemaah Islamiyah's spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir, in Central Java, Indonesia.

When New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, we sent a team of three reporters there to document the disaster.

In December 2001, then TNP journalist Seto Nu-Wen and Mr Mohd Ishak were among the first journalists in the world to make the treacherous road trip across the border between Jalalabad, Pakistan, to Kabul, Afghanistan, in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks.

"(War reporting) is never a walk in the park... we go with no protection...on our own and survive on our wits. And for a small paper to do this repeatedly, it is no small feat," said Mr Melvinderpal Singh, then deputy editor of TNP.

One small step, one giant leap

If there is a mass event our readers will always associate The New Paper with, it has to be The New Paper Big Walk. Marching bands, stilt-walkers, a grandmother pushing her grandchild in a pram, celebrities, people from all walks of life dressed up as Spider-Man, Batman and other colourful characters.

Making its debut in 1991 with a route that began at the old National Stadium, The Big Walk even made it to the Guinness World Records as the biggest mass walk in the world, when 77,500 people took part in 2000.

Not just a pretty face

More than just a modelling competition, The New Paper New Face launched the careers of models, actresses, influencers and beauty queens. Top models who walked the New Face runways include Diya Prabhakar and Kaigin Yong. In entertainment, New Face alumnae include Julie Tan, Jade Rasif, Iman Fandi and Keyana. We also have beauty queens Mohana Prabha and Zahra Khanum.

TNP columnist Yeoh Wee Teck, who has been in charge of the competition since 2002, said: "The New Face girls were of a different calibre. The legacy lives on, even if the contest is gone."