Building a newspaper on the public's trust

Building a newspaper on the public's trust

Raymond Toruan, Executive Director, PT Bina Media Tenggara and
Chief Editor The Jakarta Post

"I QUIT" The unusually large, nine-column headline splashed
across The Jakarta Post's front page on Friday, May 22, 1998, was
more than just a report on then president Soeharto's announcement
the day before.

Technically, the five-star Gen. Soeharto never resigned, as
misreported by all other newspapers in Indonesia and
mistranslated by wire services across the globe. There was no
such word as "resign", which would have been tantamount to
admitting defeat or failure, in the vocabulary of a haughty
Javanese soldier like Soeharto.

He simply quit the presidency, implying that his duties were
no longer worth his while. It was a clear signal to all that he
believed he had not failed his country and was leaving on his own
terms.

That memorable report not only marked the end of Soeharto's
three decades of authoritarian leadership, but also proved a
coming of age for The Jakarta Post in its relatively short
history.

Of course, the first milestone was the appearance of our debut
issue on Monday, April 25, 1983. It was the first newspaper to be
born of the shared ideals and the combined endeavors of a number
of this country's leading and simultaneously competing media
publishers.

A special message from the publisher printed on the front page
of that first issue said the newspaper wished "to present an
accurate daily record of Indonesia today; the dynamics of an
emerging nation and regional economic power, and the many facets
and fascinations of Indonesia's unique culture and history".

Initially, the intention was to publish an English-language
newspaper of the highest editorial quality that would not only
cater to the fast growing expatriate community in the country -
the result of more than a decade of opening up the Indonesian
economy to the global community - but, more importantly, provide
an Indonesian perspective to counter the Western-dominated global
traffic of news and views.

It turned out that 1983 was not a good year to start a
business in Indonesia, especially a newspaper. Only a year
earlier the country experienced its lowest economic performance
since the beginning of the New Order's economic development
programs in 1969. The economy did not catch up with the high
growth rate of the 1970s until after 1984.

To make matters worse, the first five-year business projection
for The Jakarta Post was based on the high growth rate of the
country's economy of the 1970s, setting out an overly optimistic
three-year period of deficits before comfortably reaching the
break-even point.

Things did not go according to plan.

On the first day of circulation, 5,474 copies of the
newspaper reached our readers. And advertising, the lifeblood of
any modern newspaper, amounted to an average of less than 10
percent of a page for the then eight -page edition for the rest
of the year.

Entering our third year, paid circulation figures hovered
around only 12,800 copies a day. By that time, The Jakarta Post
had surpassed the combined paid circulation of the two other
older English-language newspapers, the Indonesian Observer and
The Indonesian Times.

However, even though the growth of circulation up to that
period was relatively high, it was still not enough to draw
advertisers and advertising agencies. By 1985, sold advertising
space did not even reach 30 percent of space on a daily basis.

To make ends meet, the management was forced to borrow money
during the fourth year, since the starting capital had run out.
Fortunately, Indonesia's economy was on an upturn, making it
possible for the management to repay its debt within a two-year
period.

Almost without realizing it, the newspaper entered a new stage
around 1990. While paid circulation figures sustained a growth
rate of more than 12 percent a year, there was a clear indication
that it was starting to level off. A study on the newspaper
market showed that while around two-thirds of the Post's readers
were expatriates, the paper had practically saturated that
particular segment.

To keep growing in terms of circulation, we had to explore a
new audience and penetrate the Indonesian market.

It was a totally new ball game, involving harsh competition
against more established Indonesian-language newspapers. More
importantly, it necessitated a reorientation of the Post's
editorial content. Foreign readers had different tastes,
interests and needs from Indonesian ones. The newspaper was
called upon strike a cultural balance, catering to its Indonesian
readers while accommodating its loyal expatriate subscribers.

For that purpose, the Post assigned a research institution,
Resource Productivity Center, to conduct a series of readership
surveys, market research and focus group discussions starting
from the end of 1990. The objective was to find a new formula,
both for the editorial content as well as for appropriate
marketing that would expand the Indonesian readership without
relinquishing its dominant position in the expatriate market.

By 1992, a new strategy was in place and taking the newspaper
along a new course. The Post had a distinct advantage over
Indonesian-language publications in facing new challenges.

Soeharto's repressive regime, through the Ministry of
Information as well as its complex network of security agencies,
scoffed at the very notion of freedom of the press. Harassment
and intimidation were the order of the day, as was the summary
banning of publications. Even the killing of a muckraking
journalist could happen with impunity.

Under such difficult circumstances, the Post enjoyed some
leeway because it was in English, a much more straightforward,
"tell it like it is" language than Indonesian. We could report
stories that other Indonesian newspapers did not dare publish,
with the government's press watchdogs daunted by the prospect of
poring over an English-language article.

These advantages helped fuel a high growth rate through the
early 1990s, and by 1995, our readership profile had changed. The
absolute number of expatriate readers did not decrease, but its
proportion of the total readership dropped to around a third.
Meanwhile, the political situation had become increasingly
repressive, especially for the press after the closing down of
the popular Tempo magazine in 1994. The situation pushed The
Jakarta Post into a peculiar position, a symbol of credibility
and a voice of reason among the mostly meek Indonesian press.

Circulation figures kept growing and set a record (50,000 paid
copies in April 1997), with the paper promoted to the club of the
10 most-sought-after newspapers for advertising in the country.

Then came that memorable headline story of Friday, May 22,
1998, which also marked the opening of a new chapter in our
history.

The total absence of a sense of urgency in the country, which
let the financial crisis of mid-1997 snowball into the
multidimensional mayhem that helped toppled Soeharto less than a
year later, drastically changed the environment of the newspaper
industry in the country.

The plunge in the rupiah meant a quadrupling in the cost of
newsprint. The economic crisis spelled a drop in purchasing power
of the public, and consequently fewer buyers for Indonesian
papers. We found ourselves living a nightmare reality: higher
costs combined with severely reduced revenue.

The constraints on the newspaper industry did not stop there.
Almost at the same time, globalization and the superabundance of
information drastically altered the newspaper environment in
Indonesia. Meanwhile, the rapid transformation of our society has
radically changed readers' habits, needs, lifestyles and
interests.

Newspapers are no longer the predominant providers of news and
views. New technology is developed almost every week, opening up
new options in communication and broadcasting to provide diverse
real-time information. News becomes outdated only a few minutes
after the event.

The post-Soeharto era, with its defining slogan of reformasi
(reform), has brought additional challenged for the Post, as we
are now not alone in publishing daring stories. The Ministry of
Information no longer exists, its draconian reach now a thing of
the past. Practically anybody can publish a newspaper and print
stories that were once taboo.

For this very reason, we are striving to revamp this
newspaper, to reformulate its vision, to review every aspect of
its operations and to reorganize in order to meet the needs and
demands of our readers.

In short, it means redefining our approach to journalism,
exploring relevance beyond the basic news, providing a meaningful
context for every story and supplying useful knowledge for our
special breed of readers.

Our basic intent and beliefs, however, remain true to those of
our first day of publication 20 years ago. For a newspaper,
meeting the public trust is everything because readers seek more
than the outlining of news and views. It is the trust of our
readers that spurs The Jakarta Post to continue serving the
public by striving for excellence in reporting.