It was easier said than done. In theory, it was remarkable in its simplicity. Reporters would keep on typing throughout the day, like any hard-working reporter would do, but they would hand in their final copy only at 7pm. Cheong Yip Seng, who manned the news desk, was perplexed. He sat twiddling his thumbs the entire afternoon, looking at his in-tray, which stared back at him, glaring in its emptiness as the day wore on. Yet all around him, the reporters seemed to be working furiously, bent over their typewriters, looking over their notes, reaching for ringing telephones, rushing over to the library to check out facts. It looked like any other work day. Except that there was no story for him to work on.
For a newsroom to function smoothly so that the newspaper would roll off the press on time — many hours later when most souls would be in their beds fast asleep — copy flow had to be regular, coming in from 4pm in the afternoon to about 9pm or 10pm at the latest. Reports on diary events that took place in the morning would be coming in by 4pm or 5pm at the latest. All section heads understood that work had to be staggered so that copy would flow like loaves off an assembly line. Of course, cynics will describe what they read in today’s mainstream media as assembly-line journalism, stories written according to a template and to the cadence of His Master’s Voice. They may well have a point. Today’s high-speed, computerised operations make the production process a breeze that would allow journalists more time to write, in theory at least, better stories. In other words, story content and the quality of journalism should have improved. But journalists today tend to write sanitised prose. They try not to hurt the sensitivities of the mandarin class. In my time, we were less constrained. We did what we could to tell a story, warts and all, but the production process took precedence.
Group editor T.S. Khoo was the boss of this process and he took care of it from start to finish. Before leaving for lunch at noon, he would look at thumbnails of the pictures that had been taken in the morning or the night before, select at least half a dozen pictures that would have to be blown up, and decide in which pages they would be placed. Often, he would be seen bent over his desk, magnifying glass stuck to his eye like a jeweller’s loupe, peering at the thumbnails. Newbies to the department would look in alarm at his bent-over figure in the glass cage, thinking he had collapsed at his desk. Khoo’s early selection of photos and their blow-ups meant they could be laid out in the first lot of pages at 6pm, when the sub-editors, including myself, would stroll in. By 7pm, the first lot of stories would be sent to production where the linotypists would begin their work, churning out the slugs of text from pots of molten lead bubbling near their feet. This would continue till about midnight when the last page, page one, or the back page invariably, would be sent to bed.
So there was Cheong sitting at the news desk twiddling his thumbs, and casting a silent quizzical look at his team of reporters working laboriously, but without any signs of putting a full stop to their efforts. Then, suddenly, at the hour of 7pm, copy landed in his in-tray from all directions. He was swamped. The staggered flow principle was thrashed thoroughly. The reporters waited patiently for him to clear their copy as was the rule, before rushing off like Cinderella to catch her ride home in her pumpkin coach. But clearing a backlog of 25 stories, even at the rate of 15 minutes a story, took all of several hours. Copy from the news desk arrived late at the subs desk. At my end, copy not meticulously cleared needed more attention than usual. Too many grammatical slips, typos and all manner of polishing had to be done to render the copy fit to be sent on its next stage of the production process.
Cheong, despite being a union member, was not privy to our plans when we launched the work-to-rule. The Young Turks felt he would not be sympathetic to the cause of the rank and file as he would soon be making the transition to management. But the management soon wised up to what we were up to.
General manager Ronald Scott marched into the newsroom that evening and strode over to where I was working. He cast a baleful glare in my direction and, after a while, sidled over and stood looking intently at what I was doing. I picked out a story from my lot and slid it over to him. “Care to lend a helping hand? We seem to be running behind time,” I asked good-naturedly, but there was mischief in my heart.
He looked askance. I explained that it was a single-column story and, if he thought he could help, he would have to clean it — make sure it was fit to go without any errors in fact and style. Then write a 24-point, six-deck heading, I told him. What’s that, he said. Six lines of short words, maybe 10 words or so at the most, with a count of nine units across each line, each alphabet being one unit and the slimmer ones like t and i being a half-unit. He looked puzzled as he glared at me, stiff upper lip firmly in place, moustache bristling. I patiently explained again to him what a 24-point headline meant and showed him a few samples of what had been done earlier. Looks simple enough, he muttered and, to my amazement, sat down and tackled the task I had set him. I really did not know what he hoped to achieve. “You have 15 minutes to get it done, I am afraid,” I told him. And for good measure, I could not resist adding: “Time is of the essence in this kind of work, you know. And for some unknown reason, we are running late tonight.”
To his credit, Scott tackled the job I assigned him assiduously. Cleaning the copy was something he could readily do, I saw. He was English, in any case. The headline writing stumped him. He hesitantly brought the copy back to me and said: “I can’t seem to get the count of nine units across each line.” I put on my smart-assed look and said: “Let me see. What about this: Man who cried wolf pays the price? Not a great headline, but it will do, I suppose.” Scott looked impressed. “Hmm, one has to have the knack for such work,” he conceded. But it was grim business. He watched me like a hawk for the next two hours. I kept on tossing him my finished work to allay any suspicion. “Better to have a second set of eyes looking over the work. I am really running at top speed, and all kinds of mistakes can happen,” I told him. He got into the rhythm of things quite willingly. He seriously believed he was helping things along. But after some hours, he decided that subbing was quite beyond him. Of course it was beyond him. One does not become a competent sub just like that, even if English was one’s mother tongue.
Towards 11pm, when most pages would have been wrapped up, I told Scott that it was time to walk over to the production section to help speed up things in that area of work. The production hands were stunned to see Scott walking with me into the vast production room. It was a hot, steamy, smelly area, where ink smeared one’s hands and shirt and all kinds of grit got up one’s nostrils. Poor Scott, he was dressed in his usual 9-to-5 outfit, white long-sleeved shirt and tie, and stood out like a sore thumb. “This is where the real action starts,” I yelled to him above the clatter of machinery and shouts of men working fast to clear up the backlog of work.
Of course the production guys knew what we newsroom chappies were up to. They had given us their word that they would collaborate in our noble objective to work hard and smart to ensure that we brought out a first-class product. No corners would be cut, no rushing along the greasy floor, no hasty work of any kind. We followed every rule in the book. Of course, in the process, things happened. Slugs of hot freshly laid out type fell from their neat rows and had to be reassembled painstakingly. Once into the frame, proofs showed several lines of lead out of place. I got Scott to help me unravel the mess. I told him over the din: “Your presence is traumatising the workers. Please lend a hand and make sure the story runs correctly. You will see that we are 25 lines over in this story. You will have to cut that extra length from the story. Careful now, our chap is going to make a page proof.” Too late, my warning came a second too late. The chap taking the proof had to push a large heavy rubber roller over a wet piece of newsprint laid out over the newly created page over which black ink had been generously applied. Out spurted a prodigious amount of ink. It landed on the front of Scott’s immaculate shirt. He turned red with anger. “Sorry sir,” said the stone hand. “Too much rush tonight.” I added to the confusion. “Come on, Mr Scott, you are holding up proceedings. Will you kindly get out of the way? Time’s running out.” He winced at my tirade. It was almost 4am, long past the time when we would have put the paper to bed. He decided that nothing more could be done on his part and headed for home.
That quaint expression of putting a paper to bed is always said with an exhalation of pent-up breath, accompanied by a great sense of satisfaction and relief. That’s when all pages have been made into plates and locked onto the cylinders of the printing press. With that, the machine would rumble into life and churn out the pages, picking up speed until the newsprint would be zipping through the innards of the great press at blurring speed. At top speed, the machine could whip out close to 50,000 copies of The Straits Times in an hour. An amazing achievement in those days. But that first night of work-to-rule and subsequent nights, the paper was like a baby that would not be soothed and put to bed, or the maiden that would not be cajoled into bed. It never went to bed earlier than 4am or 5am, and on one occasion even 6am.
There was certainly no joy on anybody’s part working to rule. Getting a paper out on time each night is a strenuous process. Making sure that it does not get out on time is infernally more difficult. First, working to rule goes against the psyche of a journalist whose mentality is that he or she has to work fast and on time. No pondering, no pontificating, just put your head down and get the work done to meet deadlines.
Working to rule hit us on two fronts, psychologically and physically. The young reporters were fearful. Many were new to the job and wanted to show they were no laggards. But they quelled their fears and followed the work-to-rule diktat to the letter. Union leaders like me found themselves working 12-hour, tension-filled shifts and then showing up the next day for meetings. It was a grind and we wondered how long we would need to keep it up before the company and its executives buckled and waved the white flag of surrender. As they did in the case of the New Nation. But the company stood firm where The Straits Times was concerned. It was a prized jewel they could not abandon, without a tremendous loss of face — and money.
The journalists, having tasted quick victory in the New Nation, were determined not to sacrifice those gains. Both sides were adamant that the struggle would go on. So the journalists, especially the subeditors, fought on grimly through the night. Next day, we would meet our fellow conspirators to plot the next phase in the skirmish. We were confident we could win the battle with our guerrilla-style strategy. But we were not certain how the war could be won. We believed in the sanctity of our struggle and we knew we had the strength of unity, not only among the journalists but, more importantly, with the printers. As a result of our many meetings with the printers union, we learned the various points in the production process that were vulnerable. And like the tribesmen who guarded the strategic points of the Khyber Pass, we knew how to launch an ambush and win.
The Achilles heel of the production department was its linotyping section. It was laborious, time-consuming work. Dangerous too, hot lead could, and did, spill from the pots. Linotypists hit by such hot lead could be laid low for days. Lintoypists were like the prima donnas of the department. Nobody, not even the toughest of foremen, would venture to get them to move faster for fear they would retaliate and go slower. Rupert Murdoch knew the power of the linotypists. He smashed the power of the printing unions forever when he introduced computerised typesetting into his newspaper operations. Today, the entire production process has been condensed and encapsulated into a desktop computer, which comes armed with the wonders of Photoshop, QuarkXpress, InDesign and what have you. On my own, I am able today to bring out a fully fledged colour magazine where once it would need an army of linotypists, page makers, photo engravers, page proofers, and many other assistants scurrying around the production floor, to get the job done. So it was important to get the linotypists on our side in those days of work-to-rule.
Louis Nathan and Peter Wong headed the Singapore Printing Employees’ Union. Burly, hard-drinking types, they were equally eager to show they had the muscle to get their men to take a tough line. At first, they were reluctant to join forces with the journalists whose aspirations they were unsure of. Besides, they had already got their increase in bonus. We hadn’t. The printers could well have said: “That’s not our problem,” even though in their hearts, they might have sympathised with the justness of our cause.
So what made them swing over and join hands with us in our struggle? Perhaps it was our unwritten pledge to aim for a three-month bonus, just like what bank employees were receiving. The printers were sceptical at first, but after several late-night meetings, fortified by prata and tea, Nathan, Wong and their bunch of rough and ready men began to share our belief that unless the company could be brought to heel, it would continue to ride roughshod over both unions. Both SPEU leaders and SNUJ leaders began to think in sync. The Young Turks may not have matched the printers in muscularity, but their mental fortitude shone through. The printers also liked the way in which we organised our members to hark to the call for action. Even the older journalists had come around and begun to believe that only action as called for by the Young Turks could bring about changes that were long needed in The Straits Times. “Together we shall overcome” became the rallying cry.
The teleprinter link — the inexorable nexus — between the Singapore and Kuala Lumpur offices was another vulnerable point in the operations. We feared the company could have got more news reports coming over the teleprinter from Kuala Lumpur to help alleviate the shortfall in copy from the Singapore side. We had to secure the cooperation of our counterparts from across the causeway.
We caught the night train to Kuala Lumpur. We paid our own way and used our own leave. The union leaders in the KL office promised their fullest cooperation. They too were fighting the company for better bonus, having heard of the increase given to the printers in Singapore. They assured us that they would not lift a finger to stymie our efforts to work to rule.
I was particularly impressed by the printers’ union leader, Hing Ching Yoke. A young man, he vouched to move heaven and earth to help us achieve our cause. He had a flowery turn of phrase which he used to great effect when addressing a rally. He had a foghorn voice, which rose and fell in perfect pitch and cadence and moved the audience to rapture. “Brothers and sisters,” his voice would ring out. Bowing from the waist, he would then stand erect, his face reddening, the arteries swelling in his neck, his eyes blazing with prophetic zeal. I wished I could emulate his style, but his was a very tough act to follow. He would bellow: “The tyrants have long kept us under their feet. Rise up, rise up, my brothers and sisters and show them you have no fear in your hearts. The days of despotic rule will soon be over. We must recover our national pride.” He would go on for all of 15 minutes without let-up. We would cheer him on furiously. His words gave us renewed confidence. I was sure he could get the mobs burning down Times House, if we let him loose in Singapore. I never really got to know him, but he inspired confidence in us and I would have followed him to the ends of the earth. But there were pressing matters close to home and they brooked no delay.
At the height of the work-to-rule, the teleprinter room in the KL office mysteriously caught fire and output slowed. Even the most brazen among the Young Turks were aghast. We would not stoop to sabotage, we avowed at one of our endless meetings.
Our work-to-rule was definitely making an impact. The vendors were grumbling mightily. They waited interminably for the printing of the newspaper to be completed. They were accustomed to collecting the bales of freshly printed newspapers when they roared into the front of Times House in their vans, and on motorbikes and bicycles at dawn each day. But they soon learned what was happening through the Tamil grapevine. They grumbled as their livelihood was affected, but they said they understood what we were doing. They would not stand in the face of the mounting tide that would soon engulf the company.
One union stalwart who worked at the controls of the printing press once raised the possibility of making the paper snap. A paper snap is a disastrous event as it can cause the printing to be irretrievably delayed. It does not happen often. A deft hand at the controls — to ensure coordination of paper speed, ink flow, water flow and myriad buttons that needed fine-tuning — prevented such a calamity from happening too often. Running the paper again through the various parts of the machine could take all of two hours. Water splashed on the paper flying through the reels would weaken it and quite certainly cause it to snap. “You want me to throw water tonight, Clement?” asked the man in all seriousness. I considered his offer, but said we would leave that option to a later time. I felt we could vanquish the company with the jabs and hooks that we were delivering to good effect. No need yet for a thunderous uppercut. Even as we spoke, news came that the company had traced the cause of the fire in the teleprinter room to a short circuit. Nothing much more was made out of it. We were relieved. Even Divine Providence was lending us a helping hand. The Young Turks believed in the righteousness of our cause and were determined that only legal methods would be employed. But we would find out that we had to launch the ultimate weapon to force the company to see the light.