TRAINING JONO

I slept at around 3 am, on the couch. AK slept much later and while sleeping I could hear him mumbling about me snoring – yes, sometimes you can hear people talking, you can hear what Christiane Amanpour blabs on CNN and you can tell who are parking their cars downstairs while you sleep.

What were we doing sleeping very late? We were helping Jono Munajat a.k.a Jawa a.k.a Kamarul Ariffen Munajat in his ‘accelerated-course’ preparing to anchor Khabar Haji in Mecca. He has 2 more weeks before he leaves for Mecca with Haji Nazri. Together with the Haj team, they will provide daily reports on the Haj season for AWANI’s sister channel OASIS.

AK Shafizan Johari, AWANI’s Business Journalist & Anchor helped out. He played the role of the cameraman -- recording the training session, using my Sony Cybershot versatile camera. Now, this is what I like about people at AWANI. Many of them are ever willing to help. Earlier in the day, Kam helped to train AK, Faizal Murad and Dzulfitri to anchor current affairs talk show programmes.

Due to the fact that I have a full day almost everyday, ending only after Agenda AWANI at 9:00 pm, I have to schedule Jono’s training at around 10 pm. And since Plaza Damas has a great place with many eating places open till very late, I decided to do the training at my apartment at Plaza Damas, Sri Hartamas. While my Cybershot camera is used to record the presentation and questioning techniques, my Vaio laptap is used as a playback machine for analysis and de-briefing sessions.

The training started at 10:00pm at Uncle Don’s Hide Park, over satay, roti kaya, meehun and peach pudding. We went through my powerpoint slides on:

1. Branding and positioning of anchors.
2. Giving souls to stories.
3. Standuppers and crossover, and
4. Voiceovers.

After that we went to my apartment and played roles – all recorded on camera by AK. Jono was the on-location anchor interviewing a Tabung Haji representative and a doctor. Of course lah, I was the Tabung Haji representative and also the doctor. I was looking for his questions preparing and delivering techniques and of course his listening skills – one of the the most important skills needed to be a good journalist.

It was a fun session and Jono has a flair for presentation. All he needs now is strong editorial, correct branding and the x-factor screen presence.

The training ended at around 2:00 am and we went to Mc Donalds at Mont Kira – Me, AK Shafizan Johari and Jono Munajat.

Next, he will be trained on how to do crossovers and video conferencing.

I love sharing experiences and enjoy coaching others to excel. I feel so good when the people that I coach excel and become famous…

Until today, Aznil Nawawi keeps on saying, you know who was my teacher… Suhaimi Sulaiman… a good one. And every time Aznil says that I will cry – cry of joy…