'Panji Masyarakat' stops publication

'Panji Masyarakat' stops publication

Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Panji Masyarakat monthly magazine halted publication two
months ago due to severe financial problems heightened by the
country's prolonged economic crisis.

The magazine officially ceased operations in early November
last year because of cash flow difficulties, said one of its
senior journalists, who declined to be named.

"Every payday, the management became confused on how to pay
its employees' salaries," he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

He admitted that the magazine had never made a profit nor was
the company able to cover its monthly operational costs.

"Seen from a business point of view the company was not
profitable, but we tried very hard to keep afloat right up until
its closure."

The journalist further said it was impossible to republish the
magazine as most of the company's assets had been sold to
employees or outsiders.

Before the closure, the magazine's chief editor, Uni Zulfiani
Lubis, who also served as the company's director, resigned in
July last year as she felt "no longer comfortable" with the
company. She has since joined private TV 7 station, serving as a
talk show presenter.

Panji Masyarakat, founded by the late well-known Muslim
scholar, Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah (Hamka), first appeared in
1959, but it first stopped publication in March 1996. Since then
Hamka's family ceased control of the magazine's management.

In April 1997, the magazine reappeared after a one-year break
under the new management of PT Panji Media Nusantara. Three years
later a senior leader of the Golkar Party and businessman Fahmi
Idris was appointed by a controversial shareholders' meeting in
2000 as the company's president.

Fahmi, a son-in-law of the late former chairman of the
Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI), Hasan Basri, who was one of
Panji's shareholders, took the post several months after having
served as a manpower minister under the government of B.J.
Habibie, ex-dictator Soeharto's hand-picked successor.

The magazine sold some 10,000 copies every month. But its
circulation number had soared to 30,000 copies in February 1999,
when it published a controversial report on bugged phone
conversations between Habibie and the then attorney general, Andi
Muhammad Ghalib. Based on the conversations, Habibie ordered
Ghalib not to be serious in the investigation of Soeharto's
alleged graft cases.

Since 1997, the magazine no longer focused its coverage on
Islamic oriented news.

Panji Masyarakat's shareholders are scheduled to meet on
Monday to discuss several problems related to the closure,
including demands for severance payment by employees.