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."