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REACHING OUT: The bilingual freesheet hits the streets tomorrow and will feature hard news in English and lifestyle and entertainment articles in Chinese. -- ST PHOTO: CAROLINE CHIA
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A NEW bilingual paper - believed to be the world's first with equal coverage in English and Chinese - will hit the streets tomorrow.
my paper, originally a Chinese-language freesheet launched in June two years ago, has been revamped to include English-language content which is distinct and unique from the Chinese content.
Two teams of journalists - one from the English section and one from the Chinese department - will be filing these separate reports.
These changes 'reflect the changing reality of Singapore', said editor of the English section Yeow Kai Chai.
'We are reaching out to the English-educated Chinese Singaporean who is comfortable conversing in Mandarin, may listen to Mandarin music and watch Mandarin dramas, but isn't fluent enough to read hard news in Chinese,' he said.
'Instead of trying to pummel them on the head with Chinese, we are customising the news for them in English.'
Consulting editor Felix Soh said that the newspaper has now taken on a 'unique design'.
'The English-paper type of design is used for the Chinese section, because we want to attract our target of English-educated bilingual PMEBs,' he said.
'We have to use a style that they are comfortable with.'
PMEB refers to professionals, managerial-level staff, executives and businessmen.
Editor of the Chinese section Goh Sin Teck added that the Chinese pages will continue to carry 'the human interest, entertainment and lifestyle' articles.
'We're playing to the strengths of each language,' he said.
The paper will be relaunched with much fanfare at Raffles MRT station tomorrow between 7.30am and 9am.
There will be giveaways containing cans of coffee and traditional Chinese tau sar piah (green bean biscuits) bundled with each paper.
On Wednesday and Thursday, the bundled paper and snacks will also be given out by performers on open-top buses plying the Central Business District during the lunch hours from noon to 2pm.
Today's Straits Times also comes with a preview sampler of the revamped my paper.
The freesheet, with its revised print run of 250,000 copies, targets working adults aged 20 to 40, and will be available at MRT stations, office buildings and coffee franchises. Some copies will also be home-delivered.
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