Diana Ser is in the pursuit of truth

Becoming a near victim of an attempted robbery, almost getting caught in a crossfire, and driving down an unfinished highway in Cambodia are not routine happenings. Any one of these incidents would be enough to send anyone into a tizzy, but Diana Ser experienced it all within several days, and somehow managed to hold her own.

It was April 2022, and travel borders had just reopened post Covid-19. The plucky host and journalist was filming an episode on love scams for CNA’s investigative series Talking Point in the coastal city of Sihanoukville – a five-hour drive from the country’s capital, Phnom Penh. Once a sleepy seaside town, Sihanoukville has been taken over by Chinese-led development in recent years to become a buzzing casino hub. The city is now rife with Chinese crime syndicates and various types of online scams.

“We were in a very dangerous place,” Diana confesses. Her Cambodian driver and bodyguard had approached her that morning to ask her to stop all activities as they felt unsafe. “We didn’t know the syndicates or gangs we were up against. They requested to see the rushes [raw, unedited footage on the camera], in case they were identified in any of the shots.”

She pauses, then adds thoughtfully: “It’s very clear now that there were many moments where [someone in] the car in front of me, which had fully tinted windows, could wind down the window and shoot at me. You know it’s bad when you and your cameraman look at each other and say, ‘This doesn’t feel good. We’ve got to run, and run fast.’”

The hair on her back might have stood then, but the 53-year-old is poised and unperturbed as she recounts the harrowing incident now. We are seated side by side at Merci Marcel in Palais Renaissance, and she is a picture of elegance in a baby blue cardigan and jeans. I wonder aloud if being in that perilous situation fazed her in the least.

“Unfortunately, I feel that when I do these things, I’m in the zone. You know?” Diana turns towards me. “I imagine that’s how surgeons feel when they’re operating.” I nod slowly as I try to hide my astonishment, and urge her to continue.

“When I was in Kuala Lumpur recently for [a Talking Point episode on] sinkholes, we were in this area where it’s completely cordoned off due to the risk of sinkholes. Once I got down there, I totally forgot about them. We were everywhere, hammering on the floor and all that, and people said to me, ‘You’re crazy! Weren’t you scared?’”

Diana thinks she is driven more by adrenaline than fear when it comes to her work. “I’m particularly drawn to the underbelly of society, the downtrodden or disadvantaged. Such environments and individuals have great stories to tell,” she says. “It is about giving them a voice.”

A career in the pursuit of truth

Her ferocious tenacity and go-getter proclivities sum up Diana’s allure in a nutshell. They are what pushed her to pursue a career in the media industry for the past 30 years, where chasing down compelling stories became her forte.

Diana started out at the age of 22 as a research writer for national broadcaster Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). In her 10 years at SBC, she also took on acting roles and hosted television programmes, becoming what was popularly known at the time as a full-time artiste.

In 2000, she crossed over to Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) to become a reporter with daily newspaper Streats. This was, by far, her favourite stint, she recalls, as a wide smile spreads across her face.

While at Streats, she found immense gratification in covering the 2001 General Elections. “I felt really at home going to the wet markets with the politicians when they did their visits. Looking at all the colour, the interactions, and the man on the street – this was where I belonged.”

By 2003, however, she had joined CNA (then known as Channel NewsAsia) as a producer and presenter for Get Real, a documentary series that explored the hidden and often unpleasant side of Singapore. She was tasked on her debut episode to explore how residents in Geylang live in the famed red-light district. This gave Diana her very first taste of living life on the edge as she went undercover as a streetwalker.

“I was walking along the street in broad daylight after my research interview and a man drove up to me in an MPV [multi-purpose vehicle] – the style of car that everybody’s dad drives. He said, “Xiao jie, duo shao qian?” [Miss, how much?] I was staring at his face and I realised one thing: They are in a different world when they come to this place. They are only seeing a piece of flesh.”

Diana remained at Channel NewsAsia till 2006, the year she became a first-time mother. Seeking flexibility, she decided to become a freelance host and presenter, and has run on her own schedule ever since.

For the last seven years, she has become a familiar face on Talking Point (where she is one of four hosts), tackling current issues and events, and how they affect people in Singapore. The weekly show offered her the irresistible combination of television and reporting – the former, her comfort zone after her wealth of experience on television, coupled with doing what she loves most.

Most topics on Talking Point are user-generated, and Diana covers a breadth of them, including school bullying and the recent spate of F&B closures in Singapore. One of her best-performing episodes? A deep dive into the reuse of cooking oil in hawker centres, which has garnered approximately 1.5 million views on Youtube to date.

“I remember having a conversation with my team regarding this. People were going on about, ‘How often should they change the oil? Should they change it? People should do this or that. It became very annoying,” Diana says, her brow furrowing. “I said, ‘Do you think changing oil is so easy? What tips do you have to change oil?’ I mean, my favourite you char kway [Chinese deep-fried dough stick] place uses an old-fashioned giant wok. I cannot wrap my head around changing the oil in that wok.

“My boss then said I had a point,” she recollects with a laugh. “The oil changing part is the reason why I believe the story went viral. I did what came naturally to me, and that was to ask questions.”

From storybooks to the spotlight

At present, the question Diana is particularly interested in asking me is on the topic of one-room Housing Development Board (HDB) flats. “Did you know we had one-room flats when I was growing up?” she enthuses, in between sips of her piccolo latte.

Born to a small-time contractor father and a dishwasher mother, Diana grew up in a Hokkien-speaking, working-class household in one of these unique flats in Toa Payoh. “We were the first-generation of nuclear families in HDB flats. It’s super cool and makes so much sense because as kids, my two siblings and I were forced to live alongside one another. With so little space, it was easier for my mum to keep an eye on us!” she states with a flourish.

The eldest of three children, she often helped her mother chop potatoes to make curry puffs for sale. By today’s definition, Mrs Ser would be a “home cook and could become very famous” as her food was good enough to be sold to coffee shops. However, back then, she was just doing what she needed to make ends meet.

Describing herself as well-behaved with nary a rebellious streak, Diana reveals that she did well in school despite her family circumstances. “I was studious for some strange reason – perhaps I liked learning,” she chuckles, revealing that books were nowhere to be found in her house. “I mean, given my parents and what they did, not much was expected of me academically.”

She remembers being a little nerd and sitting outside her house to memorise her times tables.

“I told my mum not to let me enter the house until I got it right. Isn’t that annoying? Which kid will do that?” she questions incredulously.

In hindsight, her eventual career choice made sense. There were always signs of her excellent linguistic and public speaking skills as a child – once 12-year-old Diana discovered libraries, her nose would be buried in a detective series, to a point where she would gleefully skip family dinners to be lost in her world of books.

The revelations deepened: She also won storytelling competitions in primary school, and took part in singing competitions at the community centre at the age of five. “I guess from a very young age, I was performing on stage without actively doing so. My mother has all these beautiful pictures of me with my little trophies from the singing competitions,” she beams.

Diana went on to earn a Bachelor of Communications degree at the National University of Singapore (NUS), followed by a Masters in Mass Communication from Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Recently, she has been thinking about going back to school to get a PhD.

“I need to go back to school!” she exclaims. “I love the idea of being Dr Ser, but I’m not sure if I have the gumption for it. I might take up a course in law, or return to studying Chinese or Japanese.”

On love and leaving a legacy

“I’ve always wanted to be a Her World cover girl,” she discloses in a low voice during our cover shoot at high-security storage facility Le Freeport. “Because the Her World woman is one with a good head on her shoulders.”

On set, Diana is task-oriented and highly efficient. She politely declines having lunch so she can get going with the shoot, which I gather is a glimpse of what she must be like at work. During our interview, she comes well-prepared to chat, but is decidedly more relaxed. Our two-hour conversation is peppered with light-hearted anecdotes, especially when it comes to her husband, actor-turned-banking executive James Lye, and their three children, Jake, 19, Christy, 17, and Jaymee, 14.

For the record, Diana and James met on Television Corporation of Singapore (TCS)’s Showbuzz in the mid-1990s. She was still a research writer (SBC had become TCS at this point; both companies are predecessors of Mediacorp,) and he was auditioning for the part of the male host. Diana had also auditioned to be the female host alongside him, but did not get the part as the then-CEO felt that Diana and James “were not compatible”.

I ask cheekily if it was mutual attraction with James, and she rolls her eyes. “No way!” she demurs. “He had just come back from the US and had an American accent,” she says, clucking her tongue. “Why speak like that?

“He was also a model; he was so young and handsome,” she continues, her tone softening. “I’m not exactly model material. When he asked me out, I assumed he was trying to sell me insurance, because he was also doing that at the time. Why would a guy like him want to date me, except to sell insurance?”

We roar simultaneously with laughter. The couple dated for nine years before tying the knot – they celebrated their 21st wedding anniversary in June this year. The secret to their long and happy marriage? Shared fundamental values, Diana quips. “Also, a willingness from one party to yan xia yi kou qi [swallow one’s pride].”

As a mother, Diana has always believed in being present. As James took on the main breadwinner role, she knew that the responsibility of being there for her children fell on her. Part-time work suited her well, and she has no regrets spending extended amounts of time with them when they were younger.

She recounts sending videos of their children to James while he was caught up at work. “My husband used to say, ‘You have no idea how much these videos are like lifelines. I’m jealous when I see what you do with them, but I’m hanging on to it because it’s the only way I can take part in their lives.’”

Diana is hyper aware of her next goal, which is raising a brood of teenagers to have integrity and champion the less privileged. “My children are blessed and I can’t change that,” she admits. “I can’t say, ‘I will disadvantage you so you know what it’s like [to be underprivileged].’ I find it does not make sense. However, I tell them that they are lucky, and in return, they must give something back.”

When asked if ageing is a big deal to her, Diana shrugs. On the contrary, she finds herself in an unexpected sweet spot. “I am in reasonably good health and happy with the way I look. I’m energetic enough to work, and I’ve come to a point in my career where I can say that I kind of know what I’m doing,” she muses.

So what else does she want out of this life? “I’m patiently waiting for my time to be a grandma,” she nods solemnly. “I will be a grandma that gives my in-laws as much space as possible.”

For now, she finds contentment in putting Jaymee to bed every night. “It’s important to her that I still do that, and we have our secret bedtime conversations. It is in these moments that I feel fulfilled, and that counts for something.”

PHOTOGRAPHY: JOEL LOW, ASSISTED BY: EDDIE TEO
CREATIVE DIRECTION & STYLING: LENA KAMARUDIN, ASSISTED BY JEON JAE WON
LOCATION: LE FREEPORT
HAIR: DEXTER NG/ STILE HAIR STUDIO, USING ORIBE
MAKEUP: SHAUN LEE, USING LANCOME