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KUALA LUMPUR: The sifu is dead. Tony Francis, who breathed and lived journalism, breathed his last at 8.15am today at his home in Bangsar. He was 73 years old.
The much-loved and respected journalist was an example of a smart, ambitious, and uncompromising journalism brand.
His wife Chan Cheng Tuan said he had been battling pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease in which the tissue in the lungs scar and harden over time.
She said Francis’s daughter Kylie from her first marriage to the late New Straits Times (NST) reporter Goh Keng Lee returned from New York yesterday while her son Mark was making arrangements to leave London.
Chan said, “Tony mumbled the word ‘advertising’ two days ago and we were wondering what he meant. Now everyone is talking about him. “
Indeed, superlative-laden tributes abound on the “sifu” (teacher), as many remember him for his thought-provoking work, writing, leadership, and sword wit.
For nearly 50 years, Francis made his mark in many newsrooms as editor-in-chief, news editor-in-chief, and sports editor, displaying a commitment to authentic issues with care, sympathy, and integrity.
He toned Malaysian sports through his writing, his radical approach to sports pages, and the guidance of sports journalists. He always had common sense and good politics.
Francis was instrumental in the professional lives of some of Malaysia’s best English journalists who benefited from his mentorship and whose friendship they cherished for decades.
He never took credit for the many awards won by his reporters, but his recognition came in 2015 when he was inducted into the Malaysian Olympic Council Hall of Fame for his contribution to the sport through journalism.
Francis, being the man that he was, dedicated the award to several sportswriters he worked with in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, saying:
“They changed the look of sports reporting from plain news to behind-the-scenes and insider commentary and stories. They campaigned for what was right and necessary.
“Among other things, they achieved the bribery scandal in semi-pro football in 1994, the first popular cycling velodrome in the country, and to some extent also unleashed the constitutional crisis of the 1990s.”
As the sporting supreme of NST, he was at the center of the 1993-94 season’s match-fixing expo that led to the arrest of more than 200 players, including big names. The scandal destroyed Malaysian football.
In 1986, he led a joint NST national public donation campaign with the then president of the Perak Cycling Association, Darshan Singh Gill, to raise RM3.25 million to build Velodrome Rakyat in Ipoh, the first stadium of its kind in Malaysia. .
In 1992, the NST published the sensitive story of the Douglas Gomez affair that led to one of the biggest riots in Malaysia, in which even royalty was controlled.
Gomez, a coach at Sultan Abu Bakar College, was allegedly assaulted by the then Sultan of Johor after protesting an order for his team to withdraw from the national school hockey tournament.
The order came after the son of the then Sultan, Tunku Majid, was banned for five years by the Malaysian Hockey Federation for assaulting Perak goalkeeper Mohamed Selvaraja at the Malaysian Games.
Then the government of Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad had to step in to resolve the matter and the laws on the relationship between the monarchy and the people were revised.
The story of Francis, a La Salle Sentul school student, who became a cadet reporter at the age of 20 in 1967 in the days of journalism of typewriter chatter and smoky jokes will be told for years.
Francis spoke intimately about his older brothers who were with NST. Jeffery, who has emigrated to Australia, and Jerry, the former head of the newspaper’s Ipoh bureau, influenced his career, while legendary sports editor Norman Siebel inspired him.
Siebel and the late Mansoor Rahman, whom Francis succeeded as editor, were among the first sports journalists to be inducted into the OCM Hall of Fame.
Francis spent 33 of his 35 years with NST as a sports reporter and editor during which he covered two Olympic Games (Seoul 1988 and Barcelona 1992), three World Cups (1974 Germany, 2006 Germany and 2010 South Africa) as well as a number of international events. like Thomas Cup, SEA Games and Asian Games.
Another of his highlights was the Muhammad Ali-Joe Bugner heavyweight fight at Stadium Merdeka in 1975. A pair of Ali’s training gloves, given to him by coach Angelo Dundee, remains one of his cherished memories.
Francis Ghost wrote columns for Indonesian badminton great Rudy Hartono in the run-up to the Thomas Cup final and got England soccer star Kevin Keegan to write a column when he was in Malaysia in 1982.
Francis used to say, “Sports hit me like a drug. You get a lot of joy from telling a happy story to your readers or a sad one when you have to tell them what happened in defeat. “
After a brief stint as editor of Golf Digest, he embarked on his last major stint in the printing industry after The Malay Mail was sold to a businessman by New Straits Times Berhad in 2008.
As editor-in-chief, he brought together a group of his former colleagues to help him generate energy to turn the newspaper.
When people asked him how he would deal with the rapid changes that plagued newspapers in trouble, he used to laugh: “We have to make sure reporters tell compelling stories.”
They did it. In the first two years, the newspaper’s investigative reporters won the Malaysian Press Institute’s Journalist of the Year awards.
Francis left mainstream journalism in 2011 after ownership of The Malay Mail changed hands. But many stayed in touch with him because just being in his company was an absolute pleasure. So loyal, so passionate, and extremely kind.
His last article was a first-person account of the May 13, 1969 riots on NST on October 27 in which he recounted an incident that made him stronger to face challenges.
He had gone to TPCA Stadium (now Jalan Raja Muda Stadium) with the late Malay Mail stalwart Francis Emmanuel to cover a Selangor Division 1 match between Umno Youth and Hong Chin when all hell broke loose.
Veteran journalist Fauzi Omar said he viewed his partner as the “standard for fair, inquisitive and thoughtful journalism, and I know many others who feel the same way.”
“They are no longer versatile sports journalists like Tony. It covered everything: soccer, badminton, hockey, bowling, swimming, tennis, cycling, motorsports, golf, everything.
Fauzi said: “My best years at the NST were working at the sports table with him in the 80s and I had the pleasure of covering the Seoul Olympics with him in 1988.
“It was Tony who gave me my biggest opportunity in the form of my ‘Fauzi Omar on Tuesday’ column.
“He was a quiet guy and never talked much in the office, but he managed to get the best out of his reporters.
“It was my great respect for him, as a professional and as a friend, that I always gave him my best.”
When people asked Tony about retirement, he joked: “In the world of journalism, there is no such thing as retirement. If journalists don’t continue to work in some way, we could die. “
Goodbye, sifu.
