He stepped into The New Paper (TNP) newsroom in 1996 as an intern. Come Dec 1, Mr Eugene Wee, 42, will take over as the newspaper's new editor.
"If you count my time working here as an intern, this year would be my 20th year with the paper," said Mr Wee.
"I literally grew up in the TNP newsroom, and my colleagues have become my extended family."
He will step up from his role as TNP's news editor, in which he oversees the coverage of local news, to take up his new appointment.
Mr Wee, a Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) scholar, graduated with first-class honours in communication studies from Nanyang Technological University in 1999 and recently earned an Executive Master in Business Administration from top graduate business school Insead.
He joined TNP full time as a rookie reporter in 1999, and has covered several beats including crime, entertainment, technology, defence and politics.
He was also a foreign correspondent for the paper for about five years, reporting out of St Louis, Missouri, in the United States.
Going forward, Mr Wee said his biggest challenge is reaching out to an audience that now prefers to get its news from online sources rather than traditional print media.
"This is both a challenge and a great opportunity for our little newspaper," he said.
"And with our revamped website, which will also launch on Dec 1, we hope to reach out to the online audience with videos, interactive content and bite-sized news stories that they can easily consume and share with their friends."
Mr Warren Fernandez, editor- in-chief of SPH's English/Malay/ Tamil Media group, said he told Mr Wee to "look in the mirror" when they were discussing the target audience of the revamped TNP.
"You are young, savvy, educated, sophisticated, upwardly mobile... that is the sort of crowd you are supposed to go after."
