Farewell to pioneer interns...

Nor Bazilah (right) and Nor Sahirah

The International News Service bade farewell to its pioneer interns today hours after  the Bernama management discussed a need for the news agency to step up training collaboration with institutions of higher learning.

Nor Bazilah Muhammad Ariffin of Universiti Putra Malaysia completes her two-month internship tomorrow while Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia undergraduate Nor Sahirah Abdul Aziz has a week to go before ending her eight weeks of practical training.  

Both are pursuing their Bachelor of Arts degree  in English Language.

Another intern Nurul Nadhirah Murad of International Islamic University Malaysia could not join the farewell get-together as she was unwell.

Nadhirah who is pursuing a degree in Arabic Language and Literature will complete her two months internship at the Arabic Desk tomorrow.

“I was quite nervous when I first came because Bernama is such a big name,” said Nor Bazilah.

She is thankful for the experience gained and hoped to complete her studies with good results.  

High among the ‘assignments’ during her internship would definitely be the Bernama-organized National GST Conference held at the Double Tree by Hilton Hotel  in Kuala Lumpur on 10 and 11 of July 2014.

She and Nor Sahirah were assigned as rapporteurs in the team led by International Desk Editor  Nor Faridah Abd Rashid, who was also their internship supervisor.
As we offer more of our newsrooms as classrooms, Bazilah and Sahirah were actually the first two interns dedicated to the International News Desk for their entire practical training. Previous interns would normally be assigned to the other two Bernama editorial news services -- General New Service and Economic News Service.

Earlier in the morning, General Manager Datuk Yong Soo Heong said Bernama should uphold the strongest sense of responsibility and commitment in journalism as more institutions of higher learning were coming to learn from our experience.

Foto Ridzuan Mohd Ghazali

He mentioned about the recent visit by a group of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UITM) students, brought by a former Bernama colleague-turned lecturer Abdul Latif Bakar, and some time ago from Unitar International University.

“This shows their respect for this place,” he told  the management committee meeting.

“They send their interns here and we can draw from them for future recruits,”  said Datuk Yong.

To better organized future interns, he said Bernama could probably utilize the ‘available’ 10^th floor of Wisma Bernama to cater for them rather than on ‘ad-hoc’ basis.

He also said that staff should make full use of the agreement that Bernama initiated with institutions of higher learning such as UCSI.

Bernama could also revisit an agreement with HELP University signed five years ago.