`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)