Point Blank: From respected magazine to best-seller now
03 Jun 2006
Johan Jaaffar
"WHAT have you done to my Mastika?" Those words haunt me to this day.
A few months after the magazine Mastika came out with a new format and an entirely new orientation and content, I met the late Usman Awang (Tongkat Warrant) at a function.
For Usman, who was its editor from 1958 to 1962, the new Mastika was beyond recognition. He had his reasons for being concerned. Mastika was the first major magazine he headed and it was no ordinary magazine. It was the third publication of the Utusan Melayu Press (after Utusan Melayu, the daily, and its weekly edition Utusan Zaman).
Mastika in Jawi came out on June 1, 1941, five years after Utusan Melayu the flag-bearer of Utusan Melayu Press. Utusan Melayu was the first newspaper "financed, managed and edited solely by Malays of the archipelago". There have been numerous newspapers and magazines published since the first Malay paper, Jawi Peranakan, came out in 1876. So the publication of Mastika marked another milestone in the history of the company.
The first cover of Mastika had an illustration of a man blowing a trumpet, signifying the magazine as the undisputed champion and the true voice of the Malays. One must remember that, like Utusan Melayu, Mastika was born in an era some would label "linguistic nationalism".
The pen was the sword Malay nationalists used to argue their case for Malay rights and the call for independence. Mastika was initiated by the then editor of Utusan Melayu, the legendary A. Rahim Kajai, considered the father of Malay journalism, and its managing editor Yusoff Ishak, who later became the first president of Singapore.
One of the first reporters working under the charismatic Rahim was A. Samad Ismail (now Tan Sri).
Samad learnt fast under Rahim. He was spat at, shouted at and his work thrown into the waste basket. Samad’s short stint at Utusan Melayu Press at Cecil Street, Singapore, by his own admission, was the turning point of his personal and professional life.
Mastika became a treasured publication of Utusan Melayu Press. It was a respectable publication by any measure. The articles were well- edited and the contributors were almost the who’s who among the intelligentsia and journalists of the day.
More importantly, its literary pages (which included short stories or cerpen and poetry) set a standard of excellence. Many writers who later became famous started as contributors for Mastika.
The editors of Mastika too were legends in their own right — Mohd Dahlan Mansor (Hamdam), Kamaluddin Muhammad (Keris Mas), A. Samad Said, Usman Awang, Asraf, Abu Bakar Husny and in later years Harun Hassan, Subky Latif and Zaharah Nawawi, to name a few.
Mastika had its worthy competitor in Dewan Masyarakat, a monthly magazine published by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP).
Dewan Masyarakat started publication in 1963 in romanised (Rumi) script. The new policy of using rumi for official usage in Bahasa Melayu by the Ministry of Education left Mastika with no choice but to use Rumi in 1967, the year the company came out with Utusan Malaysia, a newspaper in Rumi.
Mastika was losing its lustre even before that. Circulation was down and it had lost its relevance. When I came to Utusan Melayu Berhad as chief editor in 1992, the monthly average circulation of Mastika was hardly 6,000 copies.
"To publish or not to publish" was the Shakespearean dilemma I faced at the time. Mastika was bleeding the company. I left the decision to my deputy, Khalid Mohd, who discussed the matter with Zainol Fakir, a veteran journalist. They came out with an idea: "People love ghost and supernatural stories, so why not come out with a new Mastika that will carry such things."
Wait a minute. I was not going to turn Mastika into majalah hantu (a magazine about ghosts and spirits) under my watch. But I had no choice. Mastika would have to close otherwise. I said yes to Khalid.
Zainol and his gang started planning the new format and content.
In September 1995, the new, revamped Mastika hit the stands. There were stories about ghosts, spirits and more ghosts and spirits. And some human interest items. I have never seen so many such stories in one volume. I did not even bother to bring back the first edition home.
One of my sisters heard about a wonderful new magazine in which I was stated as the chief editor. My sister-in-law called to say she couldn’t find the magazine at the newsstand. I knew we had a bestseller.
It hit 20,000 copies on the third month. And the rest is history. It became the fastest growing magazine in the history of Malaysia — surpassing 150,000 in less than a year. It’s hovering around 300,000 copies a month now — making it the biggest selling magazine in the country.
And it has at least 30 "clones" in the market today. Not even comics like Gila-gila or Ujang or women’s magazines like Wanita and Jelita could come near the figure.
Let me tell you some of the stories that ran in Mastika over the years: "Ismail diculik Puteri Bunian" (Ismail kidnapped by Princess of the Unseen), "Orang Minyak Mengganas di Felda Tenang" (Oily Man Terrorising Felda Tenang) and "Berlari Bogel dari Johor Bharu ke Perlis" (Running Naked from Johor Baru to Perlis).
Some of the stories, like the one about a person who was assigned to inspect certain parts of prostitutes’ bodies by Japanese soldiers would certainly shock you.
How about the story of an imam, while bathing a just-deceased man, discovered worms coming out of the body?
Call it the dumbing-down of Malay readers. Or better still, the downslide of Malay publications. The truth is such stories sell. Even today, Malay papers are facing a dilemma.
Harian Metro with its staple of sensational stories is currently the biggest selling Malay newspaper, not Berita Harian or Utusan Malaysia.
The difference between the average circulation of the biggest selling newspaper in this country (incidentally a Chinese one) and the biggest selling Malay paper is almost 100,000 copies.
One can blame the Utusan group for publishing Mastika.
Usman and many others were unhappy with the changes we made back in 1995. Understandably so.
But as Khalid, the present chief editor of the group, pointed out to an audience a few days ago to commemorate Mastika’s 65th birthday: "If we had not revamped Mastika, it would have died a natural death."
Like Khalid, I offer no apologies.