While all of Malaysia is staying at home, a large group of national heroes are working nonstop to ensure our safety. The frontliners are the light of this country.
– DATUK HANS ISAAC, FINAS CHAIRMAN
Despite the movement control order (MCO), it’s work as usual for the newsrooms. Take for example, the New Sarawak Tribune newsroom.
Every day, even though they have been told to work from home and not to come to the office, the reporters and photographers still have their daily assignments to do. Most of the interviews are now done on the phone and many of the interviewees, including ministers, now provide their own photographs.
Looking at the busy New Sarawak Tribune newsroom, you won’t know that the MCO is being implemented in the country. When the time for work comes, everyone in the editorial section — the executive editor and his deputy, the news editor, sub-editors and desktop publishing (DTP) artistes — clock in as usual.
As a sub-editor, I have to clock in by 3pm daily and leave only when all the pages are done.
We are now in the third phase of the MCO but workwise, nothing much has changed in the newsroom except that most of the news now are on Covid-19. So much so that at one editorial meeting, the executive editor exclaimed “We are becoming a Covid-19 paper!”
The pace of work is still relentless; it is a race against the clock — to finish before the clock strikes 12 every night. There are days when the pages are completed by 10pm but such days are rare.
There are many new terms that sub-editors handling the Covid-19 news have to familiarise themselves with now like “social distancing”, “PPE” (personal protective equipment), “PUI” (persons under investigation), “PUS” (persons under surveillance), quarantine centres, etc.
Working during the MCO is not fun. In the office, we have to wear masks and have been told to wash our hands regularly. We have not seen most of our colleagues from other sections like administration since March 18, day one of phase one of the MCO. We have not seen other people other than those who work with us in the newsroom.
Phase one of the MCO was from March 18 to March 31 while phase two was from April 1 to 14. Phase three is from April 15 to April 28. At this point in time, it is not known whether the MCO will be extended again.
During the MCO, the streets in Kuching City are relatively quiet. It used to take me 40 minutes to reach my office from my home in Tabuan Laru. Now I take only half that time. Sometimes, however, as I drive from Satok towards Petra Jaya, I see a lot of cars and motorbikes and wonder what essential services the motorists and bikers are providing.
Like other towns all over the country, Metrocity is a ghost town after 5pm. It is all quiet on the roads when I go home at night. So far, I have only encountered two police roadblocks on my way home after 11pm. Both happened the same night, albeit on different roads.
The policemen asked me where I was going. “Going home after work,” I replied.
“Where do you work?” “New Sarawak Tribune”.
After that, they let me go without asking me for my letter of permit which allows me to be on the road after 7pm.
I salute frontliners like doctors, nurses and healthcare workers who deal with Covid-19 patients and risk their own lives daily.
Nevertheless, I am proud to be a frontliner also during the Covid-19 crisis. I am proud to be part of the editorial team that churns out the New Sarawak Tribune every day to provide detailed coverage on Covid-19 and keep the public updated.
In a news story carried by The Star recently, president of the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) Dr N. Ganabaskaran pointed out that the media played a vital role in providing detailed coverage on Covid-19.
He said media workers should be given incentives for their key role in educating and keeping the nation informed of the pandemic situation.
“Thanks to their hard work, everyone in the country is consistently updated and informed.
“Their work has also played a key role in enabling better control and management of this infectious disease,” he said in a statement issued on April 6.
Dr Ganabaskaran added the government should give employees in the media industry a special incentive for their invaluable service in this time of crisis.
Like healthcare workers, the media employees, he pointed out, were also fighting the pandemic by providing the public with information.
Thank you, Dr Ganabaskaran, for your kind words and for thinking about me, my colleagues and my fellow journalists and media workers!
