Learning-on-the-go is the newsroom's modus operandi

Learning-on-the-go is the newsroom's modus operandi

Adam Schwarz, McKinsey&Company, Jakarta

When I first walked into The Jakarta Post's old (pre-air
conditioning) newsroom in September 1987, three things made an
immediate impression: the sound of manual typewriters clacking
away, the smell of kreteks, and the heat of the air. As I glanced
around, my eyes settled on Budi, the sports editor and my
soon-to-be newsroom neighbor.

Pounding his typewriter from a vantage point of about an inch
above the keys, clenching a sparking hand-rolled kretek between
his lips and adorned in a navy-blue ski jacket, it took me some
time to figure out what the first question should be.

I settled on the weather. "Budi, why the coat?" I asked,
perspiration soaking through my t-shirt. "Gets a little cold in
the rainy season," he answered, with the trace of a smile.

I gathered pretty quickly that the coming year was going to be
a lot more about what I didn't know than what I did.

I had arrived in Jakarta courtesy of the New York-based Henry
Luce Foundation, which each year sends 15-20 Americans on 10-
month work assignments across Asia. Since I was the first
journalist the Foundation had sent to Indonesia, I had the good
fortune to arrive blissfully unaware of what to expect. There was
little need to worry.

Late in my first week of work, the (even then) venerable
editor Sabam Siagian sauntered over to my desk. I asked,
presumptuously as it turned out, if there was any news I might
think about covering the following day.

Taking an unhurried inhale of his pipe, Sabam ventured that,
yes, there would be news but, no, I would not be covering it.
Covering news was not something foreign journalists-on-loan were
meant to be doing.

What you can do, he continued, is write the editorial for
tomorrow's paper. I protested that I had only been in Indonesia a
week and that I had never written an editorial before. To which
Sabam replied: "I didn't say it had to be about Indonesia, and
this is good time to learn. And it would be good to have it done
by eight o'clock," he added: "I have a dinner to go to."

I finished the editorial on time, Sabam fixed the mistakes,
and the next morning I got to read my first words published in
the Post.

I soon caught on that learning-on-the-go was the paper's basic
modus operandi. The second week I was at the Post Sabam asked me
if I had ever read the Archipelago page, which longtime readers
will remember as running in the Saturday edition and carrying a
variety of feature stories from around Indonesia plus a very
quirky Jakarta restaurant review written by someone using the pen
name Epicurious. No, I said, assuming it didn't really matter,
which it didn't. "I designate you Epicurious," Sabam said, "which
means you get to write the restaurant review this week."

As with editorials, lack of prior experience was not an
acceptable excuse, so I became a restaurant reviewer (and, to my
friends, an envied once-a-week beneficiary of the Post's expense
account.)

And so it continued through one of the most interesting years
of my life. Clutching a Jakarta Post press pass, I traveled
extensively across the country comfortable in the knowledge that
no story was too obscure for the Archipelago page and that every
story added a useful piece to my accumulating Indonesia
knowledge.

I learned, not always before the fact, about the dangers of
crossing the New Order red lines around so-called SARA issues.
And I learned as a result the various clever ways Indonesian
journalists had of saying things without quite saying them, a
skill which would become enormously useful years later as I
reported from Jakarta for the Far Eastern Economic Review and
other publications.

As a reader of the Post for the last 16 years, I've found the
paper every bit as useful and informative as I did as a reporter.

Under the capable leadership of Sabam and the excellent
editors who succeeded him, the Post has skillfully navigated what
have often been inhospitable waters for serious journalism.

For Indonesia's English-reading public, the Post has been
deservedly considered the best day-to-day window on Indonesia
almost since its inception. May the next 20 years be as
successful as the first.

(The writer is author of the best selling book "Nation in
Waiting". He is currently working with a major consultancy
company in Indonesia)