`Gatra' finally obtains its publishing permit

`Gatra' finally obtains its publishing permit

JAKARTA (JP): A group of former employees of the defunct Tempo
weekly announced yesterday that they have obtained a publishing
license for their new weekly magazine, Gatra, which will hit the
streets in mid-November.

Mahtum, business manager of Gatra's publishing company, PT Era
Media Informasi (EMI), said his group received the publishing
license only yesterday.

He said the publishing license, dated Oct. 13 and signed by
the Ministry of Information's Director General of Press and
Graphics Soebrata, was presented to the company's president
director, Budiono Kartohadiprojo.

"We obtained this license through normal procedures," Mahtum
assured journalists at the company's new office in Wisma Kosgoro,
Jl. Thamrin.

Gatra's general manager is Lukman Setiawan, who is also deputy
general manager of Bisnis Indonesia daily, and the chief editor
is Herry Komar.

Fifteen thousand to 20,000 copies of a trial edition with a
cover story on former President Sukarno will be distributed to a
selected readership free of charge.

The magazine's cover design bears an uncanny resemblance to
that of the former Tempo. Herry said, however, that "Gatra is
Gatra, and any resemblance to Tempo is simply because Tempo was
in fact our school of journalism".

Since the government revoked Tempo's permit last June for
"failing to heed the government's warnings on editorial content",
employees of the magazine have been trying to obtain a new
license.

Gatra was founded by former Tempo employees who accepted
timber tycoon Muhammad (Bob) Hasan as its major investor. Those
who refused to join tried to start their own weekly, Opini, which
they have since renamed Berita.

Copies of the trial edition of Opini circulated this week, but
the Association of Newspaper Publishers (SPS), which issues
recommendations for new publications, asked its managers to
rename it because a newspaper carrying the same name already
exists.

Bambang Bujono, chairman of the foundation that will publish
Berita confirmed that SPS has approved the proposed name.

Earlier this week, SPS asked the management to also rename the
employees' foundation by scrapping the word Tempo and dropping
Goenawan Mohammad from its board of supervisors. Goenawan was
Tempo's former chief editor.

"We have asked him (Goenawan) whether he approves of the
changes, and he has agreed," Bambang told The Jakarta Post. While
the required changes are being made, Berita's prospective
journalists can only sit and wait, he added.

"SPS officials promised to issue the recommendation once we
make these alterations but insisted that the government will
decide whether to reject or accept the application for the
publishing permit," he said.

Staff

Gatra magazine will employ over 170 former Tempo staff, but
only 30 of these are journalists.

Mahtum, who is also a manager of the Matra magazine, said he
expected this number to increase and called on other ex-Tempo
employees "who were still outside" to join in.

But Bambang said that it was unlikely that any more former
Tempo employees already committed to joining Berita would move to
Gatra only because the latter gained a license. "Those left at
Berita are the ones whom had already gone through natural
selection", he said.

Mahtum said that Gatra, which means word, form or angle, will
appear every Tuesday in 112-page form, priced at Rp 4,300
(US$$2). Early circulation will total 125,000 copies.

Forty percent of Gatra's shares belong to the Jakarta
government-owned Jaya Raya Foundation, which once had shares in
Tempo, another 35 percent to Bob Hasan and the remaining 25
percent are held by employees.

"We guarantee that the investors will not interfere with the
magazine's editorial content," Herry said, adding that Gatra
promises "healthy, objective, high-quality and balanced" news
reporting.

He assured that Gatra would not serve as the instrument of any
particular group. (pwn)