A satisfying career for Tengku Noor Shamsiah...

 

Bernama News Channel (BNC) assignment editor Tengku Noor Shamsiah Tengku Abdullah retired on August 10 after devoting almost 17 years of her life to Bernama.

Despite reaching 60, she said she is “always young at heart”.

“Thank Allah for giving us the air to breathe and let us live till now... life has to go on no matter what. Take (Tun Dr) Mahathir as inspiration...,” she said.

As she moves on in life, Tengku Noor Shamsiah looked back of her satisfying career in Bernama and related the moments.

“Even though my working experience in the media industry was for nearly 30 years, I only worked in Bernama close to 17 years plus the years that I contributed as a part timer over two years before I was given a full time job at the Economic Desk.

When I first applied for a job, I met our former editor Roger (Abdul Rahman Norodin) who advised me to join the economic desk and Datuk Yong (Soo Heong) was the one who interviewed me.

What he told me was he wanted to see whether I can perform my job or not, so I started as a part timer.

I remember that I managed to secure an exclusive story for Bernama when I interviewed Mary Brown Fried Chicken Boss on the second day of my service in the organisation. From there on, I started my career with Bernama.

Sadly after almost two years I still didn’t get a full time job even though I felt that I had given my very best to Bernama..

Perhaps nobody had even notice of my existence... however Roger came to me and asked me...”hey Tengku why are you still not getting a full time job?”.

He then told me to meet Datuk Yong who was at that time my executive editor. Roger said there was a new intake coming up and suggested that I speak to Datuk Yong.

I did and I was fortunate enough to be called for an interview again.

There were five interviewers in the panel including Datuk Yong, Datuk Seri Azman Ujang, Roger and two others whom I couldn’t recalled.

I had plan to leave Bernama when I was not offered a full time job at that time. I was planning to go overseas with a friend Vijaya Rani, who was at that time a sub-editor with the English Desk.

I was lucky enough to pass the interview and offered the job as a journalist with the economic desk and Mikhail Raj was my editor at that time.

Bernama is part of my life and I have dedicated most of my life to the news agency although officially I worked in Bernama as a full time staff for about 14 years plus.

The amount of effort that I have put in I guess was more than that.

I have never calculated the hours I spent whether off days or not simply because I just love my job and always wanted the agency to be at the top.

Bernama is part of my life and it gives me the satisfaction of working as a reputable journalist among my peers from the other media organisations.

My most memorable experience was when I managed to get a scoop interviewing the former Prime Minister Datuk Seri (now Tun) Abdullah Ahmad Badawi - Pak Lah... during the verge of his downfall after losing five states in the 2008 General Elections.

That was the time I felt that I made Bernama proud as the story created headlines in major newspapers at that time.

It wouldn’t have been that great without the assistance of my former boss in Putrajaya James or Jamaluddin who assisted me with the story.

He helped me a lot especially with the general news reporting, whether he realised it or not.

Another memorable moment for me in my career with Bernama was when I was sent to Singapore as a correspondent.

There I learnt a lot especially on the media management including building networking.

As a correspondent, I even helped out in promoting Bernama not only to Singaporean agencies but also international bodies and corporate organisations there.

I have seen Bernama gained recognition through the work that I had done and many agencies turned to Bernama for their press releases etc.

After coming back from Singapore in January 2016, I again felt very blessed to be sent to Bernama News Channel (BNC) where I could do something different from the normal work when I was with the wires.

With my dedicated boss Ara (Abdul Rahman Ahmad), who always wanted to make BNC the most outstanding compared to other TV stations and we all had to strive hard to make it the best.

I found that BNC had improved its way of news coverage - fast, truthful and efficient although lots more need to be done.

It’s proven in the 14 GE when BNC managed to beat other stations in announcing the election results.

All this happened because of the hard work and good teamwork from all the staff.

I hope and pray that Bernama will move forward to become the most reputable news agency in the world.”