Kota Kinabalu: Hii Yuk Seng regarded as Sabah’s and possibly the nation’s longest-serving chief editor of a vernacular newspaper, passed away on Friday (26 Dec). He was 83.
A grandfather of six, Hii devoted 51 uninterrupted years of service to the Overseas Chinese Daily News (OCDN), a sister publication of the Daily Express, before retiring in 2018.
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He was appointed Chief Editor in 1966 and remained in the position for more than five decades, a rare achievement in Malaysia’s media landscape.
Hii was widely known for his unwavering loyalty to the company, which he attributed to the kindness and trust shown to him by the late Tan Sri Yeh Pao Tzu and Puan Sri Yeh Lim York Sham.
For the record, both late Yeh and his wife were the true pioneers of English and Chinese journalism in then British North Borneo (Sabah following independence and formation of Malaysia in 1963).
Yeh took over the OCDN in the late 1930s and co-founded the Sabah Times in 1952 together with Donald (later Tun Fuad) Stephens, Chong Pak Nam and Datuk GS Kler.
In doing so, the late Yeh set a record by establishing the nation’s first local English newspaper 20 years earlier, i.e. edited and run by non-whites at a time when all the leading newspapers in the peninsula, including the then Straits Times, were still managed by expat whites until 1972.
Yeh went on to found the Daily Express before Malaysia came about, making both papers Sabah’s only Heritage newspapers as well as the leading papers in the state and Labuan.
“The couple treated me like a family member. That is the reason I stayed for 51 years,” he was quoted as saying during his retirement.
Born in Sibu and raised in Sarikei, Hii developed close ties with the Yeh family at a young age, and the two families later became close friends.
He began his journalism career handling telegrams and translation work, steadily working his way up through the editorial ranks.
According to Hii, Tan Sri Yeh’s father played a pivotal role in shaping his education by recommending students from Chinese Senior Middle Schools in Sarawak for further studies in Taiwan.
It was through this recommendation that Hii pursued a four-year journalism programme in Taiwan under a partial scholarship from National Chengchi University in Taipei.
After graduating, Hii returned to Sarawak but struggled to secure employment. In late 1964, he moved to Sabah, where he briefly worked as a teacher at Cheng Hwa Primary School in Papar (now SJK(C) Cheng Hwa).
In 1965, he relocated to Kota Kinabalu and joined the now-defunct Api Siang Pao, founded by the late Datuk Lo Kwok Chuen, serving as editor for less than a year.
At the time, the publication consisted of a single-sheet format carrying foreign news and local contributions from clubs and societies.
Hii then joined the OCDN, where he would go on to shape generations of journalists and readers, leaving behind a lasting legacy in Sabah’s Chinese-language media.
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