ABOUT KRISHNAMOORTHY, THE FORCE OF THE MEDIA WORLD

PROFILE OVERVIEW

While working as an officer at Tenaga Nasional (1969 to 1979), nation’s leading electricity company, Krishna freelanced and wrote news and features for the New Straits Times, Bernama, Far Eastern Economic Review, Malaysia Business and The Economic Bulletin. In March 1973 he obtained his Certificate in Public Relations Professional Examination from the Institute of Public Relations Malaysia. From 1979, he studied communications covering media, print and broadcast at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and gained his BSc (Hons) in Communications (News-editorial).

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Whilst at university he played a prominent role in the Knoxville festivals, cultural events and was a key player in promoting the 1982 World’s Fair. He organised a meeting for student leaders with President Jimmy Carter, an unprecedented event at the university. Krishna’s key domain of expertise and experience is in communications in its widest sense. 

In April 1982, Krishna initiated and organised a meeting with President Jimmy Carter when he served as President of International Students Association at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

His portfolio encompasses marketing, feature writing, public relations, social media use, writing media releases, copywriting for advertising, script writing, documentary production, speech writing and presentation skills as well as reporting and production for television. He has worked across a wide range of private sector businesses, including transport, oil and gas, banking, financial services,  tourism and pharmaceuticals. In the public sector, his experience extends across NGOs, police, the diplomatic service, domestic ministries and in leadership and business forums.

At the same time, he is passionate in providing insight to senior and middle management clients with practical training in communications, public and media relations. As a consultant, he manages and executes reputation management, media and stakeholder relations programmes for both home-grown clients and MNC brands. His new business is developing excellent spokespeople for organisations.

EXPERIENCE

JOURNALISM NEWS AND FEATURES

For more than 35 years Krishna has been writing news, features, commentaries, and investigative undercover expose as a journalist. He worked on the New Straits Times for 11 years and on The Star for 15 years, becoming the latter’s senior writer and chief reporter. He has specialised in investigative reporting and has gone undercover as a journalist posing as a beggar, security guard, blind man, a handicapped person trying to hire a taxi, as a salesman, a Member of Parliament and as an executive at Kuala International Airport catching taxi touts. https://undercoverjournalistblog.wordpress.com/

He has the honour of achieving the highest number of page one splashes in The Star. His international assignments have taken him to China, Malta, Italy, USA, Indonesia, Christmas Island, UK and French Guiana. He has scooped many stories and was the first Malaysian journalist to have a extended interview with the president of Indonesia (Gus Dur). He continues his journalistic career freelancing for CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Time magazine as well as German, American and Australian TV stations.

SOCIAL MEDIA
As well as participating in academic research programmes, Krishna is also a practitioner in the social media. He is active on Facebook, Linkedin with about about 3000 connections. He is also a regular contributor for the hottest news website, Malaysiakini.com, with the highest hits in Malaysia. He does professional training of journalists at Malaysiakini and other professional programmes through its campuskini. Krishna has advised organisations on understanding social media policy and how to tap into market research of understanding customer behaviour through the social media.

MEDIA TRAINING
Krishna’s forte is the training of spokespeople to Face the Media. This he has been doing for 35 years and has built up a enviable reputation for the challenging and realistic approaches he brings to the subject. He is a firm believer and practitioner of interactive training will help participants become more competent and confident when dealing with the news media. His training aims at developing the skills needed for a successful encounter with the news media. He insists participants face tough, experienced journalists during multiple, recorded interview and press briefing simulations, followed by extensive critiques. Both informational and crisis interviews are emphasized in his fast-paced, highly interactive sessions. The workshops are customized to provide top-level executives and other managers with intensive media training and practice. The sessions addresses the unique training needs of senior executives who have had little or no formal media training, might benefit from a refresher, or need to prepare for an upcoming media encounter – whether that encounter involves conveying good news or discussing a serious problem.

Crisis: MH370 Krishna talks in Capital TV interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38VigPF9bl4

CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS

In marketing and corporate communications, Krishna has developed a range of practical tools and  techniques to increase an organisation’s public profile. He facilitates the analysis of and engagement with a company’s stakeholders and is an expert in reputation management and in the identification of issues and how to manage them. He has advised MNCs, government clients on all communications activities for the business and corporate brand building and image enhancement through better media relations. Krishna is passionate about proposing corporate communications ideas to his clients. He gets involved in resolving issues for effective brand building and communications plans. His responsibilities has included strategic development of integrated brand, communications and digital campaigns and the tactical implementation and assessment thereof, advising on communications matters to senior management.

LECTURING
Krishna is in demand because of his wide-ranging experience and expertise at international conferences and seminars. He regularly lectures at Malaysian universities to students in media and communications on news and feature writing, using his own textbook, THE YOU IN JOURNALISM. He was responsible for training university interns at The Star between 2000 and 2019. He has taught journalism, public relations, media relations, public speaking, news and feature writing at Monash, Murdoch, HELP, IACT College (Malaysia’s premier college specialising in creative communication), UTAR, Tunku Abdul Rahman University and Xiamen University Malaysia. His lectures are engaging, well-illustrated, and activity based through role plays. His coaching and training has benefitted CEOs, HODs and top Government civil service officials and ambassadors. For example, he lectured in 2007 to University of Malaya students on preparing them for careers in journalism and between 1999 and 2004 covered newsroom theory and practice and the writing of news features at the Malaysian campus of Monash University. He has presented papers at international conferences in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and the USA.