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Prize-winning former journalist dies of cancer
Published:  Feb 24, 2019 10:43 AM
Updated: May 30, 2021 1:21 PM

Stephen J Duthie, a prize-winning former Asian Wall Street Journal correspondent during one of the most tumultuous periods in Asian journalism, has died in the US state of Michigan after a short illness. He was 66 years old.

Born in New York City, Duthie was the oldest of seven children. He attended Rutgers University in New Jersey as well as New York University to fulfil the requirements for a Master’s degree in journalism. 

A gifted athlete, he was also captain of the Rutgers University basketball team and a member of the Power Memorial 1970 National Championship high school basketball team from New York City. 

Asked why he chose journalism instead of going on to a lucrative professional basketball career, he answered with the title of the Wesley Snipes movie: “White men can’t jump.”

Duthie was a national economics correspondent for the Detroit News, covering US President Ronald Reagan’s economic agenda after covering the presidential campaigns of Edward Kennedy and Reagan, as the paper’s national political correspondent. 

He became bored with reporting in the United States and joined the AWSJ in 1984 as the newspaper’s Singapore correspondent at a time when the late Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was growing increasingly authoritarian and irritated by independent Western-style reporting.

At the same time, then (and later) Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was cracking down on the press in Malaysia. The now-defunct Far Eastern Economic Review and Asiaweek, as well as AWSJ, took the brunt of their wrath.

He almost immediately ran afoul of Lee with a story casting doubt on the success of Singapore’s proposed Nasdaq-style second board, causing the prime minister to push a law through the country’s parliament giving him the authority to cut the Journal’s Singapore circulation from approximately 10,000 to 100 copies a day.

Nonetheless, he continued to cover the country’s changing political scene and events that led to the mid-1980s recession despite the prime minister’s ire. After banning the paper, Lee’s office called up the paper’s circulation department and demanded that copies continue to be sent to his office.

There followed a long series of protests by the government to almost every story that appeared in the Journal

In 1986, Duthie moved to Kuala Lumpur after Mahathir expelled the paper’s two correspondents there, giving them 72 hours to get out. Correspondents in both countries worked under significant pressure, with the governments in both countries objecting to the paper’s coverage. 

In 1988, Singapore refused to extend the Journal correspondent’s visa and the bureau remained closed until mid-1992.

In Malaysia, Mahathir beat back pressure from upstart opponents within Umno, eventually firing the chief justice of the country’s highest court, in part out of irritation with the court’s earlier ruling that he had expelled the Journal’s two reporters without legal standing after their critical reporting on corruption and political repression. 

Duthie was the lead reporter on Singapore’s Pan-electric scandal, which closed the stock exchange for several days, and reported on Malaysian corporate wheeling and dealing including parcelling out privatisation deals to Umno cronies of Mahathir and his business guru Daim Zainuddin.

Duthie left the Journal in 1995 to return to the US, becoming the managing director of Phileo Capital, a subsidiary of Malaysia’s Phileo Allied, which was then closely affiliated with then-finance minister Anwar Ibrahim – until he fell out with Mahathir and ultimately was imprisoned on charges regarded by human rights organisations across the world as fabricated.

“It doesn’t matter how long you will be here, but how well you have lived this life,” said Anwar, now the country’s presumptive premier-in-waiting, in a fax. 

“Steve’s work as a correspondent during my time as the finance minister was nothing less than a memorable encounter. My condolences to his loved ones. May time heal the pain through remembrance of his legacy.”

Duthie recruited senior reporters and the current editor of The Edge, Malaysia’s leading business and financial newspaper, which was once owned by Phileo. He also led Phileo Group in creating The African Edge, a Johannesburg-based monthly magazine. 

He later moved to corporate communications, first with Whirlpool Corporation and later with Alticor Inc, the parent company of Amway Corp.

The sudden death left friends and associates in shock. Simon Elegant, a friend and former Time Magazine bureau chief in Beijing, called Duthie a “true stand-up guy, a gentleman and a great journalist" whom he regarded as his mentor.

SK Witcher, previously a copy editor and reporter in Singapore and Hong Kong for the Journal, called him “a great colleague and friend”. Michael Vatikiotis, the former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, called him “a kind and generous person, as well as a great reporter”. 

Leslie Lopez, who succeeded him in the AWSJ Malaysian bureau, said he was “not just a colleague and dear friend. He was in every way a mentor”.

“I worked with Steve for more than 10 years in Singapore and Malaysia,” said Raphael Pura, a colleague. “He was the ultimate professional reporter. He went about his business calmly and meticulously, a no-drama guy. 

"His stories would be bullet-proof, accurate and insightful. He covered dozens of stories, often breaking exclusive pieces. Beyond that, he was a steady and reliable friend, quietly always ready to help if help was needed,” he said.

Duthie was a former member of the National Press Club in Washington, the US-Asean Business Council, the Public Relations Society of America and the Asia Society. 

He is survived by his wife, Cheryl Kurepa, and daughters Mila and Milana, all of Michigan. 

A memorial service is to be held on March 9 at the Bloomfield Open Hunt Club in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan at 11.15am. Those who are unable to attend or who wish to further honour his memory may contribute to the American Cancer Society or to a charity of their choice.

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