Journalist with a diplomatic mission

Journalist with a diplomatic mission

Endy Bayuni, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Is anyone out there watching this program?

For the last nine months, every night at midnight Australian
time, or 9 p.m. in Jakarta, Jacinta Tynan has been going on air
to read the regional news for the ABC Asia Pacific from its
studio in Sydney.

But because the channel, and therefore the program she
anchors, is specifically targeted at audiences outside Australia,
Tynan wonders from time to time about the impact she and her team
has, and whether they are doing the right thing.

"It's a strange kind of job to have. We broadcast live at
midnight Australian time. So we sit there late at night,
wondering: Does anybody appreciate this? Is anybody watching
this?" she said during a recent visit to Jakarta.

Of course, Tynan was underestimating her own capacity to
charm, and the strength of her own news program, which packages
the day's major news from countries in the region, as well as
some of the biggest stories from around the world.

By ABC Asia Pacific's own reckoning, the channel reaches some
20 million viewers worldwide, including about 600,000 in
Indonesia, mostly Jakarta, who can tune in via cable or satellite
television. Its own recent research of people in high-income
groups in Indonesia found that ABC Asia Pacific ranked fifth in
awareness of foreign television channels in a list topped by CNN
and MTV.

Not bad for a channel that only been back on the air for 10
months since it was shut down due to budget cuts.

As the name implies, ABC Asia Pacific is a subsidiary of the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The regional channel came
back in December, with the help of Australian government funding.
ABC, which already had an extensive network of correspondents in
the region reporting for its Radio Australia, took up the
challenge.

Tynan said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer was
behind the initiative to revive the channel.

"The Australian government decided that television was a very
powerful medium to get the message across. They want to make
Australia's presence known in the region."

The decision to revive the channel should also dispel any
lingering doubts among people in the region about where
Australia's foreign policy priority really lies.

"It shows that Australians are trying to see themselves as
part of the region, rather than as a separate country," Tynan
said, noting that this was an attitude consistently shown by the
government, no matter what party was in control.

Government-funded it may be, but the channel has complete
editorial independence from the powers that be in Canberra, even
as it carries its "diplomatic" mission to represent Australia and
its values to the people in the region.

"We still run stories critical of Prime Minister John Howard,"
Tynan said.

Reporting on armed conflicts in Indonesia, as in Aceh and
Papua, the channel and the regional news program she represents
does not take sides. "We just report when something happens. We
don't hold back on what's going on there."

"We don't have an agenda," she added.

Admitting that the regional news program had a tendency to
report more bad news than good from countries in the region,
Tynan said the program always tried to include some light as well
as positive stories, as far as possible.

Tynan, who has been a journalist for a good 12 years now and
has pocketed various professional awards, takes her job as a
newscaster seriously, and with a strong sense of a mission, one
that includes taking into account the sensitivities of people of
different cultures.

"I see the job that I have as being quite responsible. We have
to bear in mind the sort of people that we're broadcasting to."

But it's also a job that she feels gives her some privileges.

"You get to see the changes that are taking place in the
region. They're encouraging, but at times they can be
discouraging too," she said, underlining the peace drives that
are now happening in the Korean peninsula and in Sri Lanka as
some of the more recent examples of encouraging news.

Pronouncing the names of people and places is one major
challenge that Tynan grapples with every night.

While she often finds this bewildering, she goes all the way
to make sure that she pronounces these names correctly, calling
friends in the countries concerned if she has to, or consulting
with fellow ABC staffers who come from these countries.

She finds Indonesian names among the easiest to pronounce
because they are quite phonetic, and Thai names the most
difficult.

"I thought I'd pronounced (Susilo) "Bambang Yudhoyono" quite
well, until someone told me the other day that I hadn't," she
said, referring to the Indonesian chief security minister.

"I can't bear it if I get something wrong. We lose credibility
if we mispronounce. And we cannot afford to get it wrong because
we're going into the country."

People in Australia have come to know Tynan through her
reporting over the last 12 years, initially for the Seven
Network, reporting from North America and Britain, and later for
ABC these last six years. Her television presentation experience
has included ABC News in the Northern Territory, ABC national
bulletins, national Late Edition news and World at Noon.

But with her move to ABC Asia Pacific since December, very few
Australians get to see her these days, unless they travel outside
the country.

"When people ask, 'where have you been?' I tell them I've gone
global."