New daily to hit streets next week

JAKARTA (JP): Jakartans will get another daily afternoon newspaper on Tuesday when Suara Independen (Independent Voice) begins to regularly hit the streets.

The daily's chief editor, Taufik Darusman, said 10,000 copies would initially be printed for distribution.

The newspaper was officially launched on Aug. 17, independence day, but will only formally begin circulating on Tuesday.

"It will be distributed throughout the country but we will focus on Java first," said Taufik, who is also managing editor of the Indonesia Observer English language daily.

Taufik said the new daily would give equal coverage to politics and economics.

"In the spirit of reform we want to produce good news to encourage people in the middle of the crisis," he said.

In Jakarta, Suara Independen will enter an already crowded market for afternoon dailies. Berita Buana, Harian Terbit and Suara Pembaruan are all established publications in this niche of the newspaper market.

Nevertheless, Taufik was optimistic about the prospects for the eight-page daily.

"We spotted an opportunity in the afternoon daily market," he said, adding that the daily could go to 12 pages in October.

"Suara Independen is aiming at the upper middle class market," Taufik said.

The new paper's managing editor is former Antara news agency journalist Riris Irawati.

Taufik said the paper currently has an editorial team of 15 people, a third of whom work for the Indonesian Observer.

Taufik said that the name of the daily was initially just going to be Independen, however when they submitted an application for a publishing license they discovered that the name was already being used by a newspaper in Lampung. (01)