International Journal Advances in Social Science and Humanities
Available online at: www.ijassh.com
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Decision Making in the Newsroom – Tell Me Something I Don’t Know
Roslina Abdul Latif*
Email: [email protected]
Abstract
Most journalism is not about facts but about the interpretation of what seem to be facts. In recent years, the interpretation, influence and pervasiveness of the news from different media organization are beyond doubt. Yet there are still disagreements and conflicting views about just how the public is influenced by the media in general by the news written by the journalist particularly and the stories produced by the editors specifically. Journalism is often called the news business – the gathering, the processing and delivery of important and interesting information and further developments or follow-up stories by newspapers and broadcast media or vice versa – is inextricably entangled in that giant, whirling entity often referred to as the media. Story selection is a decision-making and choice-making process but a hurried one. As a result, the considerations must be quickly and easily applicable so that choices can be made without too much deliberation. The objective of the study is to identify the changes that have taken place in the editing policies in the newsrooms, explore the forces that have influenced the decision making process in the newsrooms for the broadcasting system and to study if news programming patterns have changed since Najib’s reign as Prime Minister and which government policies have influenced the network’s programming. Notable editors, chief editors and group editors from Sistem Television Malaysia Berhad (TV3) and Astro Awani gave in-depth interviews on their decision making process and issues of internal and external forces that ‘dampen’ the process of nation building in shaping the trajectory of the news, hence, sustaining a potentially transformative public sphere in tandem with the prime ministers elaborate government policies.
Keywords: Decision making, External forces, Government policies, Internal forces, Transformative public sphere.
Introduction
Author and news executive Jack Fuller writes: “The central purpose of journalism is to tell the truth so that people will have the information that they need to be sovereign” [1]. This statement is true as we rely on news media especially in times of crisis. A good example was during the September 11, 2001 disaster where journalists responded quickly and professionally. The horrifying details of the attacks on New York’s World Trade center and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. were conveyed rapidly to a global audience in print, the Internet, by radio and by vivid color in television. Virtually the same horrific footages were seen and shocking reports were heard as in the States.
Although the news media in Malaysia may seem lacking in coercive power as they cannot literally draft journalists to war torn nations or do coverage on crisis nations but this has changed
considerably in recent years. This was proven recently during the attacks on Lahad Datu, Sabah. As we deployed our police and army personnel, we also deployed our team of journalist to cover news on the ground. Their influence and pervasiveness are beyond doubt. Yet there are still disagreements and conflicting views about just how the public is influenced by the media in general by the news written by the journalist and the stories produced by the editors.
known as story selection done by the editors or gatekeepers.
Often thought to be glamorous and powerful individuals, journalists in general are hard-working, often harried people with little time for and even less patience with, the glamour of being on television (for the broadcast journalists). They are dedicated professionals ever conscious of their responsibilities to the job and their audience. They have more power than the rest of us mainly because they express and often subscribe to, the economic, political and social ideas and values which are dominant to Malaysia.
This paper looks at the terrains within the landscape of the nation’s broadcasting houses whose main business is news. This is not an exhaustive study on the selected broadcasting houses used for comparison, namely Sistem Television Malaysia Berhad (henceforth TV3), an terrestrial television station and Astro Awani (henceforth Awani), a pay television station. Malaysia has only three broadcasting houses, namely TV3, Astro and Radio Television Malaysia (RTM), a government own television station. Hence, the justification of choosing these two broadcasting houses to get an in-depth understanding of the operation innards.
The paper is generally concerned with the decision making process in the newsroom; taking into consideration the internal and external factors that ‘dampen’ the process of nation building both in shaping the trajectory of the news, hence, sustaining a potentially transformative public sphere. It also takes stock of the current prime minister’s elaborate government policies and takes peek at how the newsrooms work in tandem with those projected policies.
With these policies, also comes the task of selection the stories that would make up the news. Story selection is a decision-making and choice-making process albeit a hurried one. As a result, the considerations must be quickly and easily applicable so that choices can be made without too much deliberation [3]. Story selection for broadcast news in Malaysia depends on a few considerations and the suitability of the stories for the day’s transmission. It has always been a policy in newsrooms to carry news of the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in the first block of the news bulletin regardless whether it is a 30 minute or an hour’s bulletin.
The rest of the news bulletin will follow the line-up in terms of importance and news worthiness,
timeliness, proximity, unusual nature, celebrities, human interest, conflict, impact, helpfulness, entertainment, issues or problems in the community and trends but not particularly in that order. The build-up of the line-up has been described by editors as a train where the main stories act as the head of the locomotive while the other stories hook-up and make the rest of the bulletin. This would generally be the main news, business, foreign, sports and the closing [4].
Identifying
the
News
and
Conceptualizing Decision Making
Story selection is a decision-making and choice-making process but a hurried one. As a result, the considerations must be quickly and easily applicable so that choices can be made without too much deliberation [3]. Many theories have been put forth about how the selection of stories is routinized. Gans [3] put forward five theories of story selection. They are journalist-centered, routinization based on organizational requirements, event-centered, technological, economic and ideological determinants, and external factors.
Other considerations include either adding stories or dropping them depending on the latest breaking news. According to Gans [3] this consideration must also be easily rationalized so one story is replaced by another and an acceptable reason for doing so is always at hand. These considerations are also designed with the efficiency so as to guarantee the necessary supply of suitable news with the least amount of time, effort and if possible expenditure. Gans [3] further describes “the news” as the picture of America as a nation and society that appears in the national news media. The same definition can be used for the current Malaysian scenario of news.
Morris [5] although years apart define decision making as a model or logical structure which is used to bring some conceptual order out of the endless variety of observations that steers the course of society and its economic and government organizations – is largely work of making decisions and solving problems. It is work of choosing issues that require attention, setting goals, finding or designing suitable courses of actions and evaluating and choosing among alternative actions.
as formal decisions, they would be unable to complete their work. They instead act on the basis of quick, virtually intuitive judgments which some ascribe to ‘feel’ or ‘gut feelings’.
Zey, On the other hand describes the theory of problem solving and decision making as centrally concerned with how people cut problems down to size: how they apply approximate, heuristic techniques to handle complexity that cannot be handled exactly [6].
A group decision then is naturally defined by means of preceding definitions as a choice between two or more alternatives made by group members or by a group leader in consultations with the membership. If neither of these conditions is satisfied, then even though a group exists and decision has been made, we will not characterize such a choice among alternatives as a group decision [7].
Background of Media Organizations: A
Quick Peek
The two media organizations that are studied in this paper are TV3 and Awani. We simply cannot dwell further into this research without taking a look at the background of these organizations and more importantly the question of ownership as it is obviously an effective way to affirm control over any entity including media establishments. Sistem Television Malaysia Berhad (TV 3) While privatization is a goal in the business sector, a free press without government restrictions is not. The government controls the press, broadcasting houses and the publishing enterprises throughout Malaysia. Strong political and economic ties between the government and the media are relationships that have been in place since the beginning of the reporting era in Malaysia. One of the initial efforts to transfer media ownership from the government to the private sector was to privatize Sistem Television Malaysia Berhad (STMB) or better known as TV3. TV3 received its license in 1983. Fleet Group which was UMNO’s (United Malays National Organization is Malaysia’s largest political party under the Barisan Nasional coalition) holding company held 40 per cent of stock making it the only single entity that had control over the station and that also gave them the right to select the remaining ownership partners. TV3 in turn owned MEGA-TV (now a defunct sister company) and Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS formally known as Business Radio Service (BRS)) or Wireless Cable, a cable ‘provider that came in tandem with the deal.
In 1994 a television broadcast license was issued to Melewar Corporation and Utusan Melayu (M) Berhad to operate Metrovision. Tunku Panglima Besar Tunku Tan Sri Abdullah ibni Tuanku Abdul Rahman was Melewar’s Industrial Group Chairman at the time. Five years into operations, Metrovision was struggling and was “temporarily” taken off-air by 1st November the same year (1999). In 2002, the Ministry of Finance owned 30 per cent of the consortium that operated Mega TV while a subsidiary firm, Sri Utara, an investment arm of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), a political party in the coalition government, owned another 5 per cent of Mega TV [8]. They resumed broadcasting on Thursday 1st January 2004 as 8TV after being bought by Media Prima Berhad.
All political parties in the coalition government and their investment companies have also interest and control in the major mainstream newspapers in Malaysia. When TV3 was issued the country’s first and only private television broadcasting license in 1983, their major shareholders then included the Fleet Group, UMNO’s holding company, the UMNO-controlled Utusan Malaysia newspaper publishing group, MIC’s Maika Holdings, Daim Zainuddin, and the now bankrupt Syed Kechik group.
Fleet Group and later Renong, took control over the then Daim-controlled New Straits Times group. In 1993 a management buy-out through the Malaysian Resources Corporation Berhad (MRCB) took over of the then lucrative TV3 from the other main minority shareholders. This was done with considerable help from the Hong Leong group’s Quek Leng Chan which then placed both TV3 and the New Straits Times (NST) group firmly in the camp of Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim at the time [9]. Ownership is obviously an effective way to affirm control over any entity including media establishment.
Presently, Media Prima Berhad, a company listed on the Main Board of Bursa Malaysia and is the leader in Malaysia’s integrated media investment group. It currently owns 100 per cent equity interest in TV3, 8TV, NTV7 and TV9. In addition, Media Prima now owns more than 98 per cent equity interest in The NSTP Berhad, one of Malaysia’s largest publisher which prints the New Straits Times, Berita Harian and Harian Metro, three highest circulated national newspapers. It also owns three radio networks, Fly FM, Hot FM and One FM [10].
Astro
Astro is the brand name of the Malaysian direct broadcast satellite pay television service. It transmits digital satellite television and radio to households in Malaysia and Brunei. Astro is also an acronym for All-Asian Satellite Television and Radio Operator.d and operated by MEASAT Broadcast Network Systems, Astro is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Astro All Asia Networks. De-listed from the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia Securities Berhad on 14th June 2010, following a successful take-over offer by Astro Holdings Sdn Bhd, a company owned by Tegas Sdn Bhd and its affiliates and Khazanah Nasional Berhad. It has operations at the All Asia Broadcast Centre located in Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur and MEASAT in Cyberjaya [11].
Tan Sri Ananda Krishnan was issued a license in 1995 to operate MEASAT. MEASAT in turn launched ASTRO, Malaysia’s digital direct broadcast satellite service. Krishnan is a long-time member of the board of the Bank Negara and operates Malaysia’s “Sports Toto” (owned by Berjaya Group currently). Malaysia’s privately owned FM stations exhibit similar ownership patterns as television, and is largely controlled by Krishnan. Five of the seven stations are owned by Airtime Management and Programming Sdn. Bhd. (AMP). AMP additionally operates four “FM” services that are available only via digital direct broadcast satellite (ASTRO). AMP is also a division of Krishnan’s ASTRO. Krishnan also has control over the telecommunication company Binariang Bhd. that owns two satellites Measat-1 and Measat-2 [12].
After the launch of the MEASAT-1 satellite as part of Malaysia’s commercialization of space, Astro commenced broadcasting in 1996 with an initial bouquet of twenty-two television and eight radio channels, which were its own channels [11]. Although established in 1996, Astro only gained a news station in 2002 called Astro News. The evolution of Astro News has brought us the
product called Astro Awani, the main news center with bases in Brunei and Indonesia [13].
Astro Awani may have only been formally introduced on 6th September 2007 but it went under the title Astro News in 2002 and hosted a myriad of international and multilingual news channels such as BBC World, CCTV-9, Al Jazeera, Eurosport news, Australia Network and DW-TV (Deutsche Welle Television, German News) [13]. The news stations were not stored under Astro Awani for very long before they each got their own news channel that allowed them to programme their own information. Bernama was the co-producer of Astro News alongside Astro, which provided the news in Malay, Mandarin and Tamil. This did not last for very long though as on 15th June 2006, a joint venture between NDTV (New Delhi Television Limited) and Astro brought about the creation of Astro Awani that was first debuted on Astro Nusantara in Indonesia [13]. NDTV had never launched a programme out of India of which Astro Awani became the first of its kind.
Theories of Story Selection
Gans [3] in his research suggests that that there are five theories of story selection that can be used to better understand how the news bulletin is prepared. The news desk receives more than 200 assignments a day for a 30 minute or an hour news bulletin depending on which television station. Having limited air time, editors must select a fraction of all these assignments to make up the bulletin. More importantly according to Gans, they cannot decide anew every day or week how to select the fraction that will appear on the news, instead, they must routinize their task in order to make it manageable.
This paper takes these theories to task with the subjects of the study:
Journalist-centered - It argues that it is shaped by the professional news judgment of journalist. Many politicians hold a somewhat similar view. Judging the news by its implications for their political careers, they blame journalistic bias when the news is not favorable or hurts them.
structures and division of labor affect story selection.
Event-centered - The so-called mirror theory which used to be popular among journalists. This theory proposes that events determine story selection with journalists simply holding a mirror to them and reflecting their image to the audience.
Technological determinists (the message is determined by the technology of the medium), economic determinists (view the national economy as molding story selection and ideological determinists (believe that journalists align the news to the political ideology of those holding power in the country).
External centered - This theory suggests that the news is shaped above all by the sources on which journalists rely or by those groups in society powerful enough both to create what they call “public events” and to gain access to journalists.
Recent Studies
Although there has been an explosion of scholarly interest in journalistic ethics during recent decades and much of the resulting literature describes the ethics, values, responsibilities, stress levels or roles of particular types of journalists, almost no work has assessed the decision making process in the newsrooms with regards to ownership and government policies. In the many literature reviewed, researchers have done portions of this study in different research projects. This paper is an attempt to consolidate those parts to fill the gaps of this research.
Faridah [14] quoting Herbert Simon (1965) on the same aspect argues that organizations can never be perfectly rational because their members have a limited capacity to obtain and process information. In her findings, it is clear that firstly, the management makes decisions in the newsroom while the second, the management consults journalists but makes the final decision nevertheless. The ideal state according to the researcher is where the journalist has greater autonomy in decision making but this rarely happens in the Malaysian newsroom scenario. However, decisions regarding the length of the story, news and visual suggestions, editing and rewriting the news, postponing a story and long range news plans involve some consultations by management with the journalists, even though the final say are in the hands of the management.
Given that the newsrooms often work on daily schedules, decision making is a vital skill. However, the very routine that demands sound decision making also hinders development of that skill. Overby [15] observed that newsroom personnel often lack time to think and discuss basic decisions; the impetus to deliver news decreases the chances for pertinent thought and dialogue. For the most part, communication scholars have taken a macroeconomic approach to decision making effects. They generally view such effects as a static entity that can be packaged and plugged into any theoretical construct and measured and described via discussion of market structure alone [16]. In short, decision making requires additional perspectives. A greater understanding of the process by which editors make decisions needs to take place.
Fitzgerald and Desjardins [17] examined the communication of organizational values and their relation to employee outcomes in two departments within a health care organization. The study found that organization values congruent with employees’ values tend to increase employees satisfaction, commitment and performance outcomes. The results indicate employees in departments with clearly defined and communicated organizational values perceived they are more involved in the organization and more participatory in decision making [17]. For the most part in this particular field of research, values have been seen as beliefs that underlie attitudes – the application of value/values-and researchers in general argue that values predict behavior [18].
Walle [20] on the other hand, sights a conventional wisdom which draws attention away from the need for diversity in programming. Although it is a popular model for globalization market and a paradigm which in recent years has become the darling of international advertising professionals, its theory of cultural evolution which states (rightly or wrongly) that technology and mass communications are creating a worldwide cultural of homogeneity. In his research, Walle also discusses ratings. Ratings were and will always be a major concern of network executives who had advertisers to satisfy. Media executives, however, began to suspect that the low ratings on one show could affect viewership on other programmes on the same channel or network.
Another aspect of this study is about the ownership and how it effects the decision making process of the newsrooms. Napoli, Philip and Zhaoxu Yan [21], takes stock of this issue in their research when they examine the relationship between television station ownership characteristics and local news and public affairs programming through an expanded analysis of data from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC's) study of Big Four broadcast network affiliates. The FCC's conclusion is that network-owned and operated stations provide more local news and public affairs programming than other affiliates, and that stations with newspaper holdings provide more local news and public affairs programming than stations without newspaper holdings only when these two program types are analyzed in combination. When these two program types are analyzed independently and when additional explanatory factors are taken into consideration, these ownership characteristics are positively related to news programming, but not to public affairs programming. The researcher’s findings reveal that while financial resources and competition provided stations with greater incentives to produce local news programming, several factors related to station ownership did not. In terms of quantity of local news provided, once the decision to provide any news was reached, none of the ownership variables were positively related to the quantity of news programming provided.
On the local frontier, Zaharom Nain and Mustafa K. Anuar [22] in their research on ownership and control of the Malaysian media discusses the history of the mainstream press and broadcasting in Malaysia which has been one stringent political, legal and more recently, economic controlled. From the emergence of the first
newspaper, The Prince of Wales Gazette, in 1806, the introduction of state-run television, RTM (Radio Television Malaysia) in 1963, the emergence of commercial television (TV3) in 1984, and the launching of Malaysia's first broadcast satellite (Measat 1) in 1996, the state's role in the overall scheme of things has been central. They conclude that there are many stark realities of the Malaysian mainstream media and the low level it has reached in terms of ownership. First, by and large and for a long, long time now, the Malaysian mainstream media have never aspired to be the guardians of freedom of speech.
Very few would argue with the observation that, thus far, the mainstream Malaysian media have been nothing more than government mouthpieces. Second, and in relation to the first point, despite all the talk about 'democracy ala Malaysia', 'freedom with responsibility', ad nauseam, we need to remind ourselves that all of the major Malaysian media organizations - including TV3, MegaTV, MetroVision, NTV7, Astro, Berita Harian, Utusan Malaysia, New Straits Times and The Star - are owned and controlled by BN parties or those closely associated with these parties. To a large extent, this allocative control helps to explain why these media organizations rarely - if ever - break ranks. Third, to reinforce such economic controls further, Barisan has a slew of laws to control the media.
In a more recent study on the public (TV1) and private pay television (Astro Awani), the researchers also found that while RTM has different influences in terms of decision making, as from supra-organizational (ownership dictates content) to industry level of inter-organization relations (competing organizations) to societal influences (government influences), Astro Awani has one additional influence, which is community or market influence (advertising). As RTM sees itself as an information provider or mouth piece of the rakyat (the people), advertising although important would not be the top priority. Astro on the other hand is just the opposite since advertising contributes a substantial amount to the prolonged livelihood of this organization. Data Findings
Network Sdn Bhd, Informant E, Managing Editor; Informant F, Executive Editor of Current Affairs; Informant G, Executive Editor for Strategy and Informant H, Assistant Director of TV News Section gave valuable time for this research. The in-depth interviews were based on a few research questions:
How are these decisions formulated in different stages of news production in terms of preproduction, production and post-production? What factors affect the decision-making process
for news?
How has television and news programming patterns changed since Najib’s reign as prime minister with his government policies?
Which government policies influenced the network’s programming?
The data from the in-depth interviews were coded for topics on decision making and also for frequency of a topic while providing examples based on real events. Topics of discussion covered a range covering pre-production, production and post-production decision making. Before the interviews were conducted, there was a need to look at the organization structure of each media broadcasting house. Both Informant A and B from TV3 and Informant E from Astro Awani were tight-lipped as the organization structure in any newsroom was considered ‘classified information’. But from the diagrams that these two informants scribbled during the interview, it was clear that TV3 has a traditional hierarchy structure as compared to Astro Awani that practices a flat structure.
Decisions at Different Stages of News Production
Both media organizations work differently in terms of the decision making process at different stages of production. The Group Managing Editor, Group Deputy Managing Editor, Head of News, Chief News Editor, Editors and Sub-editors at TV3 determined the first round of selection for the news in terms of local, regional and international. TV3 has an edge since they have regional offices everywhere so there would be an abundance of news to cover their main Buletin Pagi at 7 am (30 minutes), Buletin 1.30 (30 minutes) and their main newsreel Buletin Utama for the Malay news at 8 pm (1 hour) and Nightline for the English News at midnight (30 minutes). This is interspersed with Berita Terkini at 10 am, 11 am, 12 noon, 4 pm with the 5.30 pm slot dedicated to Business News. During the weekend there’s a sight change in the Berita Terkini with the news aired at 11 am, 12 noon, 4 pm and 6 pm. The
duration of Berita Terkini is from 10-15 minutes depending on stories highlighted.
Although Astro Awani doesn’t have the advantage of regional offices, what they have done is to deploy their journalists to all states making them specialized in their respective states, subject experts and contact personnel that can be interviewed on different issues. Awani has brief news bulletins starting from 7 am till 12 am with a 15 minute duration. Their main bulletin called Berita Awani is at 7.45 pm (30 minutes) 15 minutes earlier from Buletin Utama.In terms of decisions made for the news line-up, both organizations do it collectively as a group and deem the same stages as important which is the pre-production stage.
“At 10am every morning, we have an editorial meeting that is chaired by (Informant A). So that is when we discuss the events on the day. That is when we give suggestions and follow-ups. The editors will also brief us on the assignments they have for the day. Then the reporters go out and come back and they report to the desk on what stories they have. And then 6 o’clock every day we have another meeting also chaired by (Informant A) or in his absence one of us and that is when we discuss what are the main stories of the day” - Informant B.
“It is a group decision. Because I will chair the 9 o’clock meeting, I will chair the 5 o’clock meeting... So it’s like a council of elders. So it’s functional... because Awani is known for political stories, so what do we do now, we want to own a debate space. We want to look at great ideas in different areas” -Informant E.
The decision making process for both organizations are also ongoing processes till the news goes on air. These decisions will change according to the environment, the issue or what Informant E categorized as ‘earth shattering’:
“It depends on what happens on that day. There are days when we decide to use certain stories but almost all the while it comes from the suggestion of the (news)desk because they know better. For example, ‘for story of the day’ they know what is the strongest story so they will suggest the headlines in the meeting. At our level we have a look and okay the story and proceed” - Informant
“At 9.30 am, we have our meeting for the day, so we discuss how to develop all the stories. And then at 5pm, we will have a meeting to determine what will be the headlines and what will be the planning for the next day. During our pre-production, we would already know how the story will develop and how we are going to treat the stories. So the reporter will call only to alert if there is differing angles from what we plan if it’s totally, totally different. So far, it’s been okay, except if something earth shattering happens” - Informant E.
Factors that Affect News Decision-making Process
Forces that influenced the decision making process in the broadcasting system are numerous. There are several factors that have been identified that influences the decision making process in the broadcast newsrooms for these two stations. These factors can be further broken into internal and external factors.
Internal factors in TV3 Staff performances
Staff performance could be looked at something minor if the company is young but after 28 years being in the business, there is the need to better and stronger in terms of presentation and production.
“After 28 years of being in operation, there shouldn’t be mistakes especially minor ones like wrong graphics, wrong spelling of names (during supers), readers that still make mistakes when reading or cough while the vt (footages) is rolling). They need to take ownership and responsibility for their job” - Informant D.
Self-censorship
Self-censorship has always been practiced in TV3. This would generally cover sensitive issues like religion, race and multicultural sensitivity.
“Of course we believe in self-censorship. Self-censorship means that we know what we are doing and what we cannot do. We brief our reporters, producers and editors (so everybody is on the same page). It is company policy” - Informant A.
Company’s KPIs
The company’s KPIs and the newsroom’s KPIs in terms of revenue also need to be factored into the news process and the overall makeup of the line-up of the news as it will impact other external factors such as ratings and advertisements.
“We have to balance up or we will be in a dilemma. Of course we have our KPI and they include the editorial part, which is editorial content and everything else because is not only about quantity but quality news” - Informant A. External factors in TV3
Guidelines from the Government
Although this situation doesn’t happen often but it is highlighted as one of the internal factors that causes stress and affects the process of the news decision making process.
“Yes and no. It doesn’t happen all the time. Sometimes it happens but sometimes it doesn’t. It’s not like the political master’s micro manage us. It’s just that there are guidelines that we follow” but…
“(laughs) of course there are some political affects. We have to know who owns us those kinds of thing, goes back to that problem question of who owns. I think as a journalist we see there’s a positive morale. I think the Najib’s administration understands the fact that otherwise we will see a premature death of tv news and the newspapers” - Informant B.
“That’s a tricky question. If you’re talking about policy, we have policy. It’s a verbal policy, not a written policy. We support the government of the day, so based on that, our stories are generated accordingly” - Informant A.
“There will changes with every new PM, there always seems to be the need to prove ourselves every time. It can sometimes be stressful and tiring” - Informant D.
Advertisements
Advertisements are also another factor that effects the duration of the news line up but not so much of the news decision making process per se. In an hours bulletin, only 45 minutes is dedicated to the news as “paid advertorial, leaves us with something like 30-40% hard news” (Informant A). Informant C also concurs withthis as he laments “We don’t have enough time. We have one hour but the airtime is so limited because of the commercial” (Informant C).
Ratings
According to Informant B, “there is a fluctuation. If it is the school holidays, everybody goes on holiday then that’s a problem (because no one is watching the news)”. It also doesn’t help much when “our ratings are accumulative, meaning it doesn’t depend on one bulletin only but is an average of seven days. A.C. Nielsen accumulates, and averages it out, (so it is a weekly ratings and not just one transmission)” (Informant A).
Complaints & legal action
Viewers complaints and legal action, although seems to be the playground of the newsroom. it’s not something ‘fun’ to indulge in as it take up many man hours, court presence and legal fees. Internal factors in Astro Awani
Staff Unwilling to Adapt to Changes
When Astro started more than five years ago, many ‘old-timers’ and new blood staff joined the work force. Each of these people brought in their old cultures from their previous organizations, hence with the changes in structure that commenced March 2012, many were forced to adapt to the news transformation and some couldn’t, for various reasons.
“News has change but they don’t want to change because no.1 they are not bilingual, no.2 they just refuse to change, no.3 they just have bad attitude. No.4 you’re in an era where you are competing with online. You cannot wait for things to happen. You have go forward, so they don’t like that, you know. And they are old and slightly lazy” - Informant E
Internal Censorship
Based on a recent incident that was ‘off the record’, there’s now an internal standard operation procedure that ‘dampens’ the ‘live’ aspect of the news transmission.
“Since then we have a new SOP. Any story from Astro Awani will not go live directly. Initially our news was only delayed for 5 seconds. Now we have a new process because of that incident, we have one more filter that is called MPO news. MPO works like an internal Astro censor board. So actually all our bulletins are not live direct, in real time, its (transmission) has been delayed 4 - 5 minutes because we need to filter these news stories” - Informant F
External factors in Astro Awani Guidelines from the Government
The unwritten ‘guidelines’ that newsrooms are subjected to makes the decision making process more difficult than it already is. Astro sees
themselves as ‘partners in nation building’ but according to them Putrajaya doesn’t, so their content actually helps out the government in terms of achieving their programs especially the Prime Minister’s transformation programmes, as they feel that, that is their main role.
There is “a very thin line. It applies to all the issues that is very sensitive and very prejudice. We have to make sure so that we are not caught in the middle of the issues discussed” (Informant H). “Putrajaya and many people say bad things about us on Facebook but it doesn’t dampen our spirits. Most of them will be angry if we are bias. If we carry government stories without voices that seem not objective, they will be angry because they want a 360 analysis” (Informant E).
Informant G has a more open take on the situation - “Simple, executive power shifts the nation and the media institution exists within the nation. I know it’s easier for people to look at how the executive controls you but any executive will have a form of relation in the media... Because Astro started near the end of the last millennium, I guess in the sense of corporate management, vision, spirit, soul and all those stuff makes for a more fertile ground for such set up like these and the spirit like this...”
Stakeholders
As per TV3, Astro Awani also has government stakeholders that they need to adhere to. One of it is Khazanah Nasional but they don’t receive directives from this entity. But given the government ownership certain boundaries also need to be observed.
“I would say everyone wants us to be successful. But of course there are internal politics but I think that is just common in any organization. But when it comes to editorial, I think other than internal politics which I feel has almost no impact. All the way to the CEO and COO, so they are supportive. They also understand why there is pressure from Putrajaya because we are also owned by Khazanah, due to share holdings. But then again, as reporters, you just push the boundaries and so far we have been successful in doing that” - Informant E
Prominence of Government Policies
Rukunnegara all in one, it’s all about re-branding. One reason we cover 1Malaysia is because it’s the governments KPI. We feel obligated to explain to the rakyat so they understand the concepts clearly and so far I think we have achieved more than 60%”
On the other hand, Astro Awani takes the opposite approach where they don’t go out and specifically pick up on Najib’s policy. For example, Suara Kami, is very people centric, “so they put our hands out there, literally feel it, than align that to the policies, not just Najib’s policies but also to the opposition policies” says Informant G. He reiterated further, “the transformation, the KPI the NKRA, those are bigger model group, bigger statements. So we go down to the ground and we bring that to the people ourselves... It’s not that we have to support policies directly per se, it’s about how that translates into the people’s lives. We come from that end rather than behind the policy”
Informant H had this to say, “we prefer for the stories not to be too one sided, it needs to be balanced. Let’s say there is an accusatory issue, we will try to call in both sides to comment, so at least the news will be balanced. That’s our approach. If you have observed, in the Awani Newsroom, we like it that way and we practice that because we are a news channel, not a propaganda channel”
Fade to Black
In conclusion, different newsrooms are run differently based on different stakeholders. Both TV3 and Awani in general have different influences in terms of decision making, from industry level of inter-organization relations (competing organizations) to societal influences (government influences) and community or market influence (advertising). Both companies see themselves as information providers or mouth piece of the rakyat. Advertising is also an important and top priority as it contributes a substantial amount to the prolonged livelihood of these organizations.
Theories of story selection for Awani is very much journalistic centered as the structure is bottom up and very dynamic. The other theories such as
event centered and technological determinants play a major role in the news outfit as the news is well integrated with the social network entity via Facebook and Twitter. The news is also shared between different channels in the organizations, radio included. TV3 still follows the standard regiment of routine centered news line-up (local, business, foreign, sports). On certain occasions, event centered news also takes precedent depending on news worthiness.
Transformation, in a nutshell, is inevitable and demands agility, adaptability and efficiency from communication professionals. While TV3’s stakeholders are clear cut and there has been much change in terms of decision making and news presentation with the change of Prime Ministers, Awani has a different stand. Informant G feels that transformation is “a natural progression of information.
The amount of knowledge being gathered and propagated through the mainstream media for so long, gives it a wisdom that you can’t just cut and totally restart on a new blank page. So there will be a semblance of old and new where we’re heading.”
As reported in several newsroom studies internationally and locally, it is a traditional practice within the media organizations that most editorial and other decisions lie in the hands of the management and when the management’s hands are tied by the policies that conceal the practices, pegs and proxies, which in turn dictate the decision making process in the newsrooms. Most often than not, not adhering to these ‘guidelines’ would mean treading on thin ice.
Notwithstanding, this study shows that while working in the newsrooms can be eventful with a lot adrenalin running on days where there is a big story, it is also fraught with difficulties and challenges. As professionals in this industry, reporters, editors and management in the position to do so must begin to reliably and systematically assess their own performances.
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Informant A. News & Current Affairs Radio & Television Networks, Media Prima Berhad. 2012. Kuala Lumpur: Sri Pentas. Interview, 26th June.
Informant B. News & Current Affairs Radio & Television Networks, Media Prima Berhad. 2012. Kuala Lumpur: Sri Pentas. Interview, 26th June.
Informant C. News & Current Affairs Radio & Television Networks, Media Prima Berhad. 2012. Kuala Lumpur: Sri Pentas. Interview, 26th June.
Informant D. News & Current Affairs Radio & Television Networks, Media Prima Berhad. 2012. Kuala Lumpur: Sri Pentas. Interview, 7th April.
