A day with a TV newscaster

A day with a TV newscaster

Nova Poerwadi, 27, began his career in the newsroom of TVRI in
his native Surabaya, from where he moved to SCTV in Jakarta. He
can currently be seen on RCTI's morning news program Indonesia
Today. Having just returned from a stint at CNN's Atlanta center,
he's setting his sights on further developing his skills. Nova
lives with his parents in Cipayung, East Jakarta, and spoke to
The Jakarta Post's contributor William Furney.

JAKARTA (JP): "My day is usually pretty twisted as it starts
about midnight. I spend a while reading and sending e-mails and
get to work between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. As well as being a
newsreader, I'm also assistant producer of the program, so I have
to do a lot of the editing, writing and everything else. Thursday
and Friday are my days for presenting.

I come in and look at what we have in terms of material and
also what's on the (news)wires and help mould it into a show,
which is about 25 minutes long, plus ads. Fortunately, it's only
five days a week.

In terms of ratings, our viewership is pretty stable and is
mainly made up of expats. We limit our content to what's going on
in Indonesia and make a point of explaining things that maybe
Indonesians already know, such as acronyms. We go out of our way
to explain (them). Before the whole reform thing, English news
had an added edge: it could get away with more, as the viewing
audience is of a particular education (level). But even today, we
can say a lot of things that may rub people the wrong way on
other programs. In terms of sectarian conflicts, we mention the
religion of the warring groups, whereas Indonesian-language
programs wouldn't mention them, as it would cause problems.

I still feel there is a lot of aftertaste from the Soeharto
era. There are a lot of paradigms that should have been washed
away with the regime that are still there. So in terms of
reporting on conflicts, people prefer suppression of information
rather than showing that suffering is actually universal, whether
you're a Christian or Muslim in Ambon. When people kill your
family, it hurts, whether you're a Christian or Muslim. But the
tendency here is always to suppress the information, and that's a
paradigm of the old era. But we're just beginning the conversion
process to democracy as it's really about introducing a new set
of beliefs. And there's a vast improvement now in people being
able to report without looking over their shoulder. I think,
though, that the Indonesian media needs to move away from sound
bite reporting to human-oriented reporting. But Indonesian
reporters, I think, are still reluctant to ask questions. We have
a special word for it that isn't really in the English
vocabulary, sungkan -- fear of offending someone.

On days I'm presenting the show, other people will take care
of the dubbing, writing and so on. Half an hour before the
program airs, at 7 a.m., I go to make up. This is a time for me
to disconnect, because the adrenaline of the production process
doesn't really sit well with the calm and collectiveness I need
to anchor. I think the nervousness has left me now. I tend to get
more nervous if the script or a package is not ready, and I'll
have a look at the script one last time.

The whole presentation aspect for me is that I'm going to talk
to the home audience about what's just happened. So I treat it
like a conversation of sorts. When the show is being counted
down, I'm thinking that I'm knocking on the door of someone's
home. When the intro music is playing, I'm moving into the living
room. And when I'm on air, I'm in the living room and say,
'Hello, good morning,' and take it from there.

A few times when I've been presenting, the autocue restarted
and I had to read from the script. At some stations I worked at,
the script wasn't ready because it was the midday news and news
items kept being slotted in all the time. So I had nothing to
refer to. It was a case of winging it, keeping the 'conversation'
with the viewers going. They're not going to accept any excuses.
But reading the news is easy as the studio is a sterile
environment. You need to have a degree of make-belief, though.
You have to know you're talking to someone, as opposed to a cold,
steel camera.

After the show, the production team and I go to the cafeteria
and have breakfast, or rather lunch. I'm overweight right now, so
I'll just have vegetables. But they've just installed an ice
cream machine, so it's an uphill struggle. Then there's some
planning for the next day's program, which can involve going out
on interviews. It can sometimes be a 20-hour day.

Usually I get home at about 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. One of the good
things about working at nighttime is that you can use the day for
errands. I'm very big on sitcoms. Murphy Brown is one of my
favorites. It's one of the things that really excited me about
TV. I've found out that the TV news industry is exactly like what
it is on Murphy Brown. There are people who are perky for the
camera one minute and the ultimate nightmare the next. You have
to learn to be centered in this business or you'll go crazy. My
afternoons are taken up e-mailing, watching TV and making phone
calls. But I get very tired. Sometimes I feel I'm missing out as
I've been doing nothing but work. Right now, I'm doing what I
call "reclaiming my social life," because as much as I'm
passionate about my work, I need to become more than my job. So
I'm making the effort to go out more.

What I'd really like to do in a few years is have my own talk
show, preferably in English because you can get away with more.
But I'm happy for now.

Sometimes I'm so tired I fall asleep in front of the TV. But
then I wake up angry, because I'm a very regimented person -- my
father was in the Navy. I always find things to tinker with
before I get to bed. I have aquariums and I'll tinker around with
them. I'll watch some sitcoms and then sleep about 4 p.m. I'm
very drained at that time but oddly fulfilled."