Philanthropic Journalism and Social Change
The digital era, in which an infodemic besieges a public bowed to gadget screens, has caused a bias of truth. On mobile phone screens, information about disasters, criminality, corruption, bullying, insults, violence, wars, and conflicts scrolls by as if never-ending. This phenomenon is not only occurring in Indonesia but also in various other parts of the world.
As a result, not a few people have abandoned the tradition of reading the news because they are fed up with sensational content. Several international studies indicate a decline in trust in journalism traditions that rely on sensationalism. People are tired, not because they do not care, but because they are too often presented with suffering without direction and without solutions.
On a more local scale, the problems of Indonesian journalism are no less complicated. Mass media compete to chase traffic amidst digital disruption. Clickbait headlines become a survival tool, while the substance of news is often sacrificed for the sake of readership numbers.
Social media algorithms exacerbate the situation because they are designed to prioritise content that triggers emotions, not content that enlightens. Professional journalism must also compete with viral content from anonymous accounts, influencers, and buzzers who are not bound by any code of ethics.
This pattern of reporting oriented towards sensation and negative content creates a very concrete psychological effect. At the very least, we will see a generation experiencing compassion fatigue, or empathy exhaustion.
How could it not be? The public is now flooded with continuous news of grief until they eventually become numb. Various information on disasters, poverty, and social inequality is reported repeatedly, ad infinitum, but is rarely accompanied by context, let alone solutions.
Disaster victims are often merely used as objects of coverage to evoke momentary pity, without any follow-up on their fate after the cameras leave. Journalism of this kind stops at the level of ‘reporting’, without ever truly ‘answering’ the social problems it raises itself.
Media capitalism
For centuries, the media has worshipped the logic of capitalism in its reporting work. This is a structural problem that is difficult to avoid. Newsrooms are required to generate profit in a short time. Advertising and traffic become the main indicators of success, not social impact.
Furthermore, journalists are chased by deadlines and daily targets, so the space for in-depth research and investigative reporting increasingly narrows. The media, which should be the fourth pillar of democracy, slowly shifts into a short-term profit-seeking machine.
Ironically, the more the media chases numbers, the further it drifts from its original function. The media should strengthen its commitment to the function of enlightening and empowering the public. The profit aspect is also part of media work, but it is not the sole and primary orientation.
The orientation of capitalism within the media space does not strip away the humanitarian mission that is friendlier to sustainability. The human being referred to is a subject of change who mutually fulfils and becomes a partner in producing real social impact.
It feels as though journalism is a strategic instrument for improvement in various sectors of life. It can restore public trust from the information discourse that has been considered too exploitative.
When journalistic traditions are personalised, homeless media is created, but not all of it can be accounted for in terms of quality.
Philanthropic journalism
Republika began championing social change through a socially impactful journalistic ecosystem as early as 1993. It was not only about strengthening the editorial aspect but also building a foundational wing, namely a philanthropic institution, to build tangible impact.
However, up to this point, Philanthropic Journalism (Julantropi) has not yet found its concrete form. Content that is crowded with humanitarian issues has not been structured more systematically into a new genre that produces an alternative field of science.
On that basis, the question arises of how Julantropi actually becomes an alternative thought offered to build a new school of thought in the world of Indonesian journalism. It is born not as a form of answer, but also rises from the unique strength of Indonesian society, which cannot be separated from the tradition of sharing.
Therefore, Julantropi is rooted in the spirit of solutions journalism that has already developed in Europe and America, but takes a different path. It plants its roots in the philanthropic-cultural values unique to Indonesia, namely the tradition of goodness for social justice such as zakat, wakaf, infak, sedekah, and gotong royong.
All of these are practices and values that have long lived within our society, long before the term solutions journalism was known in Western academic circles.
The difference from the development journalism of the New Order era, which was the mouthpiece of the state, or peace journalism, which focuses on conflict issues, is that Julantropi emerges from civil society initiatives and targets the entire realm of social problems, such as poverty, disasters, health, and education.