Joseph Sipalan

About

In a career spanning over two decades, I have had the unique opportunity to meet and write about a broad set of people and issues that touched on everything from the headhunting history of the natives of Malaysian Borneo to the consequences of climate change in Southeast Asia and geopolitical strife in the South China Sea.As a specialist in Malaysian politics, I have led and been part of teams covering five general elections between 2004 and 2022, including the watershed 2018 national polls that saw the downfall of the long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition and the following contest in 2022 when Anwar Ibrahim rose to high office after more than 20 years of struggle in opposition.I also have extensive wire experience managing the macro-economics and politics and general files for Reuters in Kuala Lumpur, during which time I was a key team member covering the King Jong-nam assassination and the biennial LIMA expo in Langkawi. In both cases I had assisted in shooting footage for the video file.In my current role at the South China Morning Post, I am responsible for ensuring steady flow of daily and long-form stories for the Malaysia file, covering everything from the recent surge in culture wars to the growth of electric vehicle adoption and the country’s sustained boycott of Israel and the US over the ongoing war on Gaza.While work left me with little time to pursue formal qualifications, it required that I be highly adaptable to quickly evolving situations and adopt new skill sets, such as a basic level of OSINT, to effectively and efficiently discern fact from misinformation to ensure the highest level of speed and accuracy in copy.