ORIENTALS ALSO HAVE EARS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 158, 3 July 1942, Page 4

ORIENTALS ALSO HAVE EARS

Asiatic Broadcasts For Asiatic Listeners

Written for "The Listener"

By

F. ANTHONY

SAMPSON

HORTWAVE eiisteners in New Zealand must often ‘wonder what some of the strange words mean as they listen around the dial; what. language they are in, and where they come from. Until a few months ago some of these broadcasts went out from Singapore. For a brief period some of the Singapore news came from the " ghost" station in Java. But now one of the major centres of Asiatic language programmes, which would shortly have grown into a very large organisation, exists no more. The Malaya Broadcasting Corporation had a big job on hand last year. Not yet granted a government charter, it had to carry on and expand programmes with the existing Singapore transmitters. It had to construct a new station, which would probably have been one of the finest in the world, and install transmitters there. It had at the same time to instruct many additional engineers in the operating of the ew station, while the only training Posen a ve were on the existing low-power transmitters. Additional staff had to be ‘recruited for othcr departments, and the most important of these was the newsroom. Opening a Newsroom ..... ., There wasn’t a newsroom at the beginning of March last year. Singapore’s news bulletins in English were just

Reuter’s news summary, compiled for the edification of government departments. In Asiatic languages, they were provided by the Malaya Department of Information, whose system was sufficiently clumsy to make the news many hours late when it got on the air. I came into the picture when the MBC chairman asked my boss, the acting Director of the Far Eastern Bureau of the British Ministry of Information, if he had anybody who could write radio news. My boss had been the editor under whom I served on the North-China Daily News in Shanghai from 1929 to 1935. I had written the paper’s radio news bulletin as far back as 1934. So that was that. I started writing news for the MBC the next day. The Singapore style of bulletin soon took shape. Much shorter bulletins, for one thing. We ultimately got down to a maximum twelve minutes as our ideal. But chiefly we laid emphasis on Far East news, as being in the Pacific zone. One reason. for this was that people in other countries were not getting sufficient Pacific news, and any excitement in Europe would draw their attention away from the Pacific. From our experience we

realised the importance of Far Eastern doings and the prominence they deserved. I might add that our news keymen consisted of one man from Japan, myself from Shanghai, and a third with experience in North China. Too close to the end, we were joined by two men from Australia. In Thirteen Languages So we took over the Asiatic broadcasts from the Department of Information, and it wasn’t long before we were broadcasting in twelve languages or dialects besides English: Malay, Tamil, Hindustani, Malayalam, Japanese, Siamese, Arabic, Kuo Yue (Mandarin), Cantonese and Hokkien, French, and Dutch, with an occasional German talk. We planned for 22 languages in a few extra months. Our English bulletins were also augmented. Until the Pacific war began. That meant extra bulletins. English news opened at 6 a.m. and ended at midnight. It meant extra Asiatic broadcasts. They went on the air. There was no five-day week or extra pay for overtime. The job was done, without any fuss, seven days and seven nights a week. Transfer to Java Then came the transfer. The overseas unit was sent to Batavia. Others of the MBC stayed behind to run the Singa(Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) pore transmitter. It was only a matter of two or three days before we were on the air in Java. We wrote news, without all the sources we had in Singapore, it is true, but turned out what in retrospect appears to us a creditable job. We took turns with the Singapore transmitters in going on the air, and all too soon had to take over the whole service, when the Singapore transmitters were blown up by our own staff. And Now, What ? Again all too soon, we left Batavia. Some went to India, some to Australia. Some of the rear party joined us from

Singapore, some did not arrive. Now we are scattered still further. So an Empire centre of Asiatic news bulletins has disappeared. What will take its place? Tokio, Saigon, Batavia, Bangkok, in Japanese hands are flooding the air with Axis news. American stations are increasing their Asiatic broadcasts. India is playing its part. Australia started in a small way two months ago with a Japanese broadcast. Is it too late for Australia and New Zealand, also in the Pacific zone, to expand their news services to the extent contemplated by Singapore?