Life goes on, amid bitterness for former 'Tempo' staff<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Losing your job can be painful, even when it
\nhappens to a whole company. But life must go on, and that's the
\nattitude adopted by the former employees of Tempo, DeTik and
\nEditor.<\/p>\n
Says Eddy Herwanto, general manager of Tiras magazine: \"We
\nwere devastated when the government revoked Editor's license last
\nyear because we had just finished reorganizing our management.\"<\/p>\n
At that time Editor had gained considerable credibility as one
\nof the most resourceful and reliable news magazines in Indonesia.
\nIn terms of finance, it had just emerged, triumphant, from a
\ndrawn-out financial struggle.<\/p>\n
Just two months before the banning, in April l994, it
\nincreased the salaries of its employees by between 25 percent and
\n40 percent, depending on their performance.<\/p>\n
When the axe fell, Herwanto, Marah Sakti Siregar, Surono and
\nother members of the board of directors encouraged their workers
\nto remain calm and optimistic.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, Herwanto said, the cash flow of the company which
\nran the magazine was quite healthy. \"We gave assurances to our
\nemployees that they would receive their full salaries for three
\nmonths and, from then until we got a new license, between a half
\nand three-quarters of their pay.\"<\/p>\n
The majority of reporters and administrative employees adopted
\na wait-and-see attitude, while some took other jobs which they
\nconsidered more promising.<\/p>\n
\"It was, indeed, their right to seek a better life, but still
\nwe felt unhappy because they belonged to our family,\" Herwanto
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
To maintain their cash-flow and to remain active, Editor's
\nstaff did a lot of company profiles and other work. Some
\nreporters began doing various moonlighting jobs, but the
\nmanagement asked them to quit to avoid any hard feelings among
\nthe staff.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, some prominent businessmen expressed interest
\nin investing in a new publication to replace the banned Editor.<\/p>\n
\"Some businessmen even pressured me to accept their offers.
\nBut I had to study their proposals thoroughly before I could make
\na decision. I did not want to make a deal that would inflict any
\nlosses on our employees. The most important thing was that the
\ninvolvement of any new investor would not interfere with our
\neditorial content,\" he said.<\/p>\n
It was PT Pranadipa Persada, a subsidiary of the ALatief
\nCorporation, owned by Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief, which
\nbecame a partner in a new magazine.<\/p>\n
\"We conducted very tough negotiations for almost five months
\n(August-December l994) before reaching the current agreement,\"
\nHerwanto said.<\/p>\n
He said that Tiras was 36 percent owned by PT Adidaya Visi
\nSelaras, a company established by several former Editor employees
\njust three days after it was closed, 14 percent by Bobby Arief
\nRudianto, a former shareholder of Editor, 30 percent by PT
\nPranadipa Persada, and 20 percent by the magazine's employees.
\nThe magazine is published by PT Indepenindo Bangun Media.<\/p>\n
The license to publish the new magazine was obtained only in
\nJanuary. Initially, it was to be called Pro-aktif, but eventually
\nthe name Tiras was settled upon.<\/p>\n
The new magazine employs over 107 former Editor employees,
\nmore than half of them journalists. It also recruited 17 new
\nreporters to replace former journalists who had left.<\/p>\n
\"We know that it was not the right time to launch a new
\nmagazine as competition in this field is very keen. But we are
\nstill optimistic about regaining a good market share,\" Herwanto
\ncommented.<\/p>\n
Tiras currently has a national circulation of between 70,000
\nand 80,000.<\/p>\n
Yuanida Rosita, 28, popularly known as Ossy, was a secretary
\nin the Tempo news room from 1991 until the ban. Now she is the
\nsecretary of the \"Tebet Group\" of ex-Tempo journalists. Her work
\nis similar, but the office she supports is smaller than it was
\nbefore.<\/p>\n
Ossy said that, although she was working in Tebet, she was not
\ntaking sides in the disagreement between the leading newsweekly's
\nformer employees.<\/p>\n
\"I decided to work for them because I am closer to them than
\nto those working for Gatra,\" she said.<\/p>\n
She said she was happy being with the Tebet camp, even though
\nshe is paid less now than before.<\/p>\n
\"Money is not everything. The important thing is that we get
\nalong well with the people who work with us,\" she said.<\/p>\n
Dewi Anggraeni, formerly Tempo's correspondent in Melbourne,
\nAustralia, who now writes for a number of publications, including
\nThe Jakarta Post, said: \"My daughter has a name for a journalist
\nwho writes for several publications: a media groupie.<\/p>\n
\"Being a sixties' throwback (again, my offspring's definition
\nof me) the word groupie does not evoke respectability. So,
\ncringing and withdrawing into a dark corner, I picture a casual
\nconversation between my daughter and her friends at the universi
\nty.\"<\/p>\n
\"'So what does your mother do?' (being second-generation
\nfeminists, they'd hardly be interested in what fathers do).\"<\/p>\n
\"'She's a media groupie.'\"<\/p>\n
\"'Wow, that's cool!'\"<\/p>\n
\"Phew! Maybe I can come out now. In this era of take-overs,
\nnetworking and globalization, I suspect I am not the only media
\ngroupie around. Besides, at my age, what other type of groupie
\ncan one be?\"<\/p>\n
\"So that was what happened to me after the closure of my then-
\nemployer, Tempo, this time last year.\"<\/p>\n
\"Little has changed in terms of the day-to-day activities.
\nDuring my years with Tempo I was trained to be as resilient and
\nas flexible as possible. I was my own accounts clerk (a job I
\ndetest), lobbyist (generally interesting though not always
\npleasant), researcher and writer (the most pleasant part) and
\ncomplaints officer (post mortems). My area of coverage, apart
\nfrom social and political issues, stretches as far as the
\nsubjects covered by the publications. In some cases I have become
\nan instant, albeit superficial, expert, such as in science and
\ntechnology, medicine and health, and occasionally (fortunately
\nvery rarely), sport.\"<\/p>\n
\"Now with no one asking me to write about sport, I have
\ndropped that brief completely, running with topics that genuinely
\ninterest me. And I increasingly find that I am actually interest
\ned in science and technology, medicine and health, as well as
\nsocial and political issues, not to mention the arts. I still
\nfind myself trying to finish two completely different stories,
\nfor instance, one about a struggle between professional integrity
\nand the need for survival, the other about a pinhead-sized mite
\nthat nearly decimated the beekeeping industry in Irian Jaya. Life
\noutside my media work goes on. Requests to read and speak to
\ngroups have not stopped coming in, my family and close friends
\nhave not abandoned me, and whenever I have a spare hour or two, I
\ncontinue with my fiction writing. With a combination of luck and
\nresilience, I survived, not completely unscathed, but not quite
\nbattered either.\"<\/p>\n
Harry Komar, 49, who was a Tempo reporter from its first
\nedition in 1970, is now chief editor of Gatra magazine. He was
\nincluded in the team of three appointed by Tempo publisher
\nGraffiti Press to negotiate with tycoon Bob Hasan over the
\npossibility that former Tempo workers would be employed by a new
\nmagazine called Gatra.<\/p>\n
Hasan promised not to interfere in editorial policy and to pay
\nstaff what they had been paid by Tempo. When the results of the
\nnegotiations were presented to Tempo's workers, 70 percent of
\nthem, mostly the non-editorial staff, agreed with the plan.<\/p>\n
Looking back at the course of the events of the past year --
\nthe banning of a towering magazine like Tempo, the ensuing
\ndispute within the ranks of its employees and the consequent
\ndestruction of friendships, Harry expresses his conclusion with a
\nChinese proverb: \"There is another sky beyond the sky.\"<\/p>\n
Linda Jalil, a Tempo reporter since 1977, now with Gatra,
\nfeels indebted to Tempo for \"making\" her into a journalist.<\/p>\n
\"As a matter of fact, two months before the Tempo banning. But
\nmy husband told me postpone it until the end of the year. Then,
\nthe magazine was banned,\" said Linda.<\/p>\n
At first, Linda, who is married to a businessman, intended to
\nwork for a TV station but switched to Gatra on the grounds that
\nworking for TV was too tiring for a mother of one. She also
\nregarded the journalists at Gatra as the hard workers and the
\npersonalities she had been most comfortable with while at Tempo.<\/p>\n
\"I was among the last people to come aboard,\" she said.<\/p>\n
She said that Bob Hasan had never interfered with Gatra's
\neditorial policy and she has been delighted to see that her
\ncolleagues now pray more regularly than before.<\/p>\n
Liston P. Siregar, 32, another Tempo veteran joins the
\nIndonesian section of the BBC in London this month as a
\nbroadcaster.<\/p>\n
\"Last year was a big year for me. I got married last year and
\nI lost my job,\" said the father of a two-month-old son.<\/p>\n
He decided not to join Gatra and was among the former Tempo
\nworkers who filed a lawsuit against Minister of Information
\nHarmoko over the banning.<\/p>\n
He said his refusal to join Gatra was based on principle.
\nHowever, he said that the decision to join or not to join Gatra
\nwas a matter for each individual.<\/p>\n
\"Yet, it is regrettable that some of our former colleagues who
\nhad previously been joint plaintiffs in the lawsuit against
\nHarmoko withdrew their participation after joining Gatra, though
\nsome others did not do so,\" he said. (jsk\/als\/raw)<\/p>",
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