Tonight's Majalah 3 is all about Berita Harian, a local Malay newspaper by New Straits Times Press, a company of Media Prima. Several months ago, Majalah 3 has a new montage to replace the old one that has a new recomposed theme.
It starts off with a reporter and a cameraman spying on some people making a transaction on wanting to have a degree which is actually "fake diplomas". The day before at Balai Berita Bangsar at Jalan Riong, the headquarters of Berita Harian, the reporter and camera made a meeting with Berita Harian's journalists and editors. The journalists receive information from sources via e-mail.
After the first commercial break, it concentrates on the departments of Berita Harian. The photography unit is home to some veteran photographers who have experience in capturing historical events. Noor Azmi Mat Noor, one of the photographers in Berita Harian has experiences capturing events of Hari Merdeka. One of his tricks for capturing pictures is the photographer tells the people who wants to be featured in a picture to say Merdeka and then the photographer capture it. Another photographer, Loh Chok Heng, has exeprience of doing photojournalism for four decades. Mat Salim Shaari says that sometimes their photography assignments would be interrupted during bad weather.
Abdul Samad Ismail was the first editor-in-chief for Berita Harian in 1958. Datuk Mior Kamarul Shahid is the current editor for the newspaper. He says that there were many differences between the past and the present in making resources for a news item. Berita Harian has changed as time evolves. I've also seen Berita Harian's 1970's masthead design for the first time.
Berita Harian's interactive services are its internet website, and its social network services Facebook and Twitter. Khairul Asraf Abdul Aziz who works in the IT department, works as a web designer. His tasks are doing latest news updates in its internet website and spread the word to social network. Mohd Zaeem Salim, on the other hand, does his work on the layout for the newspaper's tablet version. Berita Harian's tablet version is available on iPad. He says that the tablet version has a more magazine feel (I also feel the same too!). It publishes every week and most of the articles are exclusive to the edition. Mior (the editor-in-chief which I said earlier) says that the mainstream media must use new media to help the continuation of the media.
After the second commercial break, the episode concentrates on the process in making the next day's newspaper. At 5:00 pm, the editors have a really important meeting - the editorial meeting. The editors discuss about which news will make to tomorrow's edition. Its news items must be critical and unbiased. I can also see a multitude of screens at the top of the meeting room screening most of Berita Harian's print version pages.
Mior says that Berita Harian initially was a carbon copy of New Straits Times, later becoming a self-recognised newspaper with its own team of journalists.
At 9:00 pm, the staff in the newsroom are really busy preparing for tomorrow's edition. They edit the news items written by the journalists. Editing was made to ensure the news items' content follows the newspapers' language style and information content.
In the graphic unit, many staff are busy making layout design for printing. Nur Amalina Jaafar changes byline and does some layout to the newspaper. Saiful Hanafi makes out some really careful touches to the front page of the newspaper. He receives material from the editor-in-chief. They have 45 minutes to complete the task. This task is done between 10 and 10:30 pm. The offstone time is at about 11:00 pm. "Offstone" is a jargon used by the staff in the newspaper making business.
After the third commercial break, the episode continues to concentrate about the preparations for tomorrow's edition. Mahfar Ali, the deputy editor of Berita Harian says that the editors must find suitable words for a news item "to get the 'oomph' factor for news.
At 1:00 am, the staff at Balai Berita Shah Alam, NSTP's newspaper printing plant are busy making preparations for tomorrow's newspaper. The newspaper's content are sent to Shah Alam for pre-press making. The staff checks for important information such as place of printing, KDN permit number and date of publication. The plate making is the process of making inserting printed materials in the middle point of between the physical and the newspaper copy. Later is was bend to be mounded on a cylinder for print.
The newspaper is published in high grade recycled paper. More than 500,000 copies were made everyday.
After the last commercial break, the episode concentrates on the making of the article about fake diplomas. The journalist has to find interesting materials for her article. She finds good pictures to suit the article in a system after the taken pictures were handpicked by the photographer who had chose the best shots. The journalist is interested in social issues.
At 3:00 am at Balai Berita Shah Alam, the day's newspaper are printed. NSTP also has printing plants in Seberang Prai, Penang; Ajil in Terengganu and Senai in Johor. (The episode didn't mention that Berita Harian is also printed in Sabah and Sarawak and is also available at the states' newsstands when it arrives in the morning instead of the afternoon. This was started in January 2012). Paid workers then began organising the newspaper bundles to be sent by lorries.
At 4:00 am, the newspaper copies arrived at the designated areas, including one in Market Square near HSBC headquarters in Kuala Lumpur. The newspaper vendors then organise the newspapers' sections and then arrive at newsstands.
To conclude the episode, Meor pointed out that Berita Harian evolved from having broadsheet sized to tabloid size and also interacting with the social media. Berita Harian has many segments each targeting a every member of a family.
PS: I've written this blogpost by refering to my written notes and then compiled to here. I think I have written this blogpost to my best.
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