Provincial media told to seek help

Provincial media told to seek help

JAKARTA (JP): Provincial newspapers should seek cooperation
with strong media publishers in order to overcome sluggish
growth, an official has said.

The director general of Press and Graphics of the Ministry of
Information, H. Subrata, said he noticed that newspapers in the
provinces still face acute problems with management and human
resources.

"One effective way to overcome this is to forge cooperation
with established news media organizations," he told a seminar on
the Improvement of Professionalism and Management of Provincial
Newspapers.

The three-day seminar is sponsored by the United States Agency
for International Development (USAID) in cooperation with the
local Institute of Economic and Social Studies and Development.

One daily newspaper and one news magazine have long cooperated
with provincial media organizations to publish new newspapers in
the provinces.

The country's largest newspaper, Kompas, in cooperation with
local organizations, is now running daily newspapers in Aceh,
Palembang, Surabaya and Yogyakarta.

While the now-defunct Tempo news magazine established Jawa Pos
in East Java, Jawa Pos in turn cooperates with newspapers in
Jambi, East Kalimantan and Maluku. (16)