ANTARA: Media and public relations must adapt to challenges in the disruption era

Semarang - The CEO of Perum LKBN ANTARA, Benny Siga Butarbutar, has reminded that media and public relations (PR) must be able to adapt to the challenges in the ever-evolving media disruption era. “The challenge of journalism in the media disruption era is the presence of rampant ‘homeless-homeless’ media,” he said in Semarang on Wednesday. He conveyed this during the Media Education and Media Gathering of SKK Migas-JOB Tomori and Banggai Regency Journalists 2026, held in Semarang. “Homeless” media refers to social media accounts, such as Instagram, TikTok, X, and WhatsApp, that disseminate news quickly without an independent website, focusing on local/viral content, being efficient and flexible, and often not bound by journalistic codes of ethics. Benny, who is also the General Secretary of the Indonesian Public Relations Association (Perhumas) Board of Experts, stated that defending mainstream media must be a shared concern for the state, professional journalist organisations, and the media. “It must be balanced and enhanced, not only with increasingly intensive reporting but also with capacity, quality, and coverage itself,” he said. According to him, “homeless” media only play with viral issues turned into “wild balls,” whereas mainstream media have consistent coverage and reliable sources. “When that is made into the same standard, both at the centre and in the regions, it will become a strength again (for mainstream media),” he said. Mainstream media, he added, must continue to develop capabilities through training, improvements, installations, and collaborations in investigative journalism and thinking journalism. Besides media, he said that PR must also be more active in building communication strategies amid the disruption era, namely the ability to be trusted, the ability to respond quickly, and then to convey the truth proportionally. “The ability to understand crises must be more frequent because crises now cannot wait 10 years to come, but can happen every second in the globalisation era that creates complexity and uncertainty,” he said. Therefore, he added, PR must be far more active in building strategies, building relations, and building collaborations because in the current era there is no ready formula, except the formula that is continuously tried. On that occasion, Benny also outlined ANTARA’s role as an actor in the national information ecosystem, namely becoming a fact-checker through comprehensive news, conducting investigations and analyses, comparing issues, and disseminating government policies to the regions. “When news is delivered much more in-depth, much more with comparisons, it shows ANTARA’s role as a reference,” he said.