... readers, columnists, advertisers miss it

JAKARTA (JP): A gloomy shadow fell over regular readers of Tempo weekly as the news magazine with the motto "easy to read and necessary" (enak dibaca dan perlu) received the "death penalty" from the government last week.

"I am going to miss it. So far it has been the only news magazine worth reading ... I could go without reading the newspaper for a week and find the whole week's news covered in Tempo," said lawyer Leoni G.I. Silitonga.

She is not the only one to miss the 23-year-old weekly.

M.A. Tamimi, a retired businessman who subscribed to Tempo on a regular basis described the magazine as "rational and unafraid to say what it wanted to say." Other magazines are "not as interesting because they are full of sensational news."

Not all Tempo readers agree to this, however.

Serrano Sianturi, a director of a marketing consultant firm, admitted that, although he will greatly miss Tempo, "it won't be as if I lost a girlfriend," he said, admitting that for certain kinds of news, he relies more on foreign newspapers.

"I don't think Tempo is very daring, but maybe that is because it is never speculative," said Serrano, who completed his master's degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S.

Although many readers tend to judge Tempo from its editorial content, many see it from the point of view of its readers' social class.

"Tempo is in a class of its own ... Its unique language and quality allows it to reach a very specific market segment. I will certainly miss it because reading it has long been a habit," said Public Relations Director of the Shangri-La Hotel, Riza A. Suryo.

Apart from articles and features by its nationally disbursed reporters and international correspondents in Bangkok, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Washington D.C., Vancouver and Paris, Tempo's contributors include nationally and internationally recognized scholars.

Among them is Franz Magnis-Suseno of the Driyarkara School of Philosophy, who pointed out that he is not concerned that he will now be unable to express his ideas through the magazine.

"That is not the major problem. The question is: what can we now expect from the press? We do not know what we are allowed to write now," he said, adding that the government's actions caused "a very pitiful setback."

Tempo's major readers include the Indonesian-speaking expatriate community as well as international news agencies, papers and magazines with their correspondents here.

Paul Jacob, the Singapore Straits Times's correspondent in Jakarta said that although he will not be at a loss due to the ban, "since the magazines were, after all, weeklies and not dailies", Tempo -- as well as DeTik and Editor, which also lost their publishing licenses -- had actually been very effective sources of news for elaboration, detail and analysis.

"This is what I will miss. But they are not the only sources, because we check more than one source," he said.

Jacob admitted that there are no weeklies as yet that have been as effective.

"At least Forum Keadilan is still around," he said, referring to a considerably vocal magazine.

Advertisers may also have lost one of their most effective mediums.

Tempo has been one of the top magazines in terms of advertising billings. Between 1982 and 1986, it notched as much as a fifth of all magazine advertising billings. During that five years, it collected Rp 102.5 billion (US$48 million).

"The ban is very tragic because it concerns the welfare of the advertising world as a whole," said General Secretary of the Association of Indonesian Advertising Companies, Juzar Junin.

Tempo was not "just another place to advertise." Among the printed media, and especially the weeklies, it was the major advertising spot, Juzar said.

He acknowledged Tempo as having a professional attitude towards members of the association.

"Tempo is mature in carrying out partnerships," he said, adding that so far, he has not seen a competitor even come close to Tempo.

"Maybe I don't intend to look for another magazine yet, because -- maybe unconsciously -- I am hoping Tempo will return," he said. (pwn)