Bahasa and English editions in the same app

Many Malaysian news apps are two newsrooms in one shell. The English homepage leads with a political gallery. The Bahasa homepage leads with a service piece and a state story. The Monday email adds them together and calls the sum “the app”.

That sum is not a language. It cannot tell the English desk that their gallery was flicked past, or the Bahasa desk that their service piece was finished. It can only soothe a manager who asked for one figure.

What to keep separate

Story opens and completions by edition. Alerts by edition, including the time they were sent. Paywall stops by edition, because the meter is often inherited from an English-language cousin and bites the Bahasa reader first. Homepage modules by edition, because they are not the same furniture.

What can be shared

A single sentence about whether the app as a whole had readers that day. One sentence. Then sit down and talk about the edition you actually edit.

We have watched a Johor daily retire a combined total after a four-page note. Conference became longer and ruder. The Bahasa service piece finally had a completion count of its own. That is the kind of rudeness a newsroom can use.