KUALA LUMPUR: Veteran journalist and former politician Datuk Rosnah Abd Majid (pic) has passed away at her sister’s residence in Teluk Bahang, Penang, at 9.30am yesterday. She was 71.
Her passing was confirmed by her sister Mariam Abd Majid to Bernama.
“It was known that she had been suffering from kidney-related complications and underwent a kidney transplant in China in 2001. Her remains are currently in Penang and she will be laid to rest in Kuala Lumpur,” Mariam said.Norzahizan Ismail, a friend of the deceased, said Rosnah had suffered a fall in the bathroom prior to her passing.
“I was informed that Rosnah had flown to Penang three days ago to visit her sister, who had been admitted to Penang Hospital due to a heart condition,” Norzahizan said.
Born in 1953 in Sungai Pial, Merbok, Kedah, Rosnah was an economics graduate from Universiti Malaya. She had a distinguished career, spending 20 years at Utusan Malaysia, where she became the first recipient of the prestigious Kajai Award in 1984.
In 1985, she was awarded the Journalise en Europe fellowship by the European Union to study journalism in Paris.
Three years later, Rosnah became the first Malaysian female journalist and the first from a vernacular newspaper to receive the prestigious Nieman Fellowship for journalists at Harvard University.
After leaving journalism, Rosnah joined Umno and won her first state seat, Tanjung Dawai, in Kedah in 1999.
She also served as a member of the Kedah state executive council from 1999 to 2004, and led the Kedah chapter of Wanita Umno between 2000 and 2003.
She ventured into the business world in 2004, joining the Florida-based company EBM for two years before founding her own consulting firm, Ramwell Sdn Bhd, in 2007.
In 2007, Rosnah was appointed as an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Communication and Modern Languages at Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), a role she held for a year.
Meanwhile, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil has expressed his condolences to Rosnah’s family, Bernama reported.
In a post on X, Fahmi said that Malaysian journalism had lost another gem with Rosnah’s passing.
“On behalf of @komunikasi_gov (Communications Ministry), I extend my condolences to her family. May her soul be blessed and placed among the righteous,” he said.
