`Simponi' will be playing a different tune next Monday

JAKARTA (JP): Simponi, a weekly magazine with a wide readership in eastern Java but almost none in Jakarta, will be playing a different tune in its next edition set to hit the streets this Monday.

If the weekly broadsheet bears a close resemblance to the old DeTIK tabloid, this is because many reporters and employees from the banned magazine have "joined" Simponi, if not virtually taken over its management.

The proprietors of DeTIK have acquired the publishing license of Simponi and are now ready to publish the magazine.

An introductory edition was circulated to limited numbers this week. It appears to be a tabloid from the outside but is really a broadsheet, a journal in the newspaper format.

It is not quite clear yet if the coming Monday edition will use this format.

DeTIK lost its publishing license together with the Tempo and Editor weeklies last June when the government said that they repeatedly ignored government warnings about their administrative and editorial content.

DeTIK's probing articles and news analysis of controversial political issues made the tabloid an overnight success. In the one year that it changed its format to a news magazine, their circulation climbed to 430,000, higher than both Tempo and Editor. Its success, however, was its own undoing as the government revoked their publishing license, which only granted them coverage of reporting on crime and legal issues.

Former employees of Tempo and Editor are currently struggling to obtain new government licenses for their magazines but the proprietor of DeTIK has been able to circumvent this by buying the license held by Simponi.

150,000 copies

Eros Djarot, former DeTIK editor and current chief of "media and public relations" at Simponi, said some 150,000 copies of the new look magazine will be printed and distributed this Monday.

Eros declined to go into further details about the magazine saying that a press conference would be held on Monday. "Please wait until Monday," he told The Jakarta Post.

The magazine's editor in chief, an appointment which requires official approval, will still be retained by Syamsu Hadi of the old Simponi.

DeTIK's former managing editor, Budiono Darsono, has been appointed executive editor of the new publication.

PT Detik Media Prestasi, the publisher of DeTIK, has already laid off its employees, including 80 reporters as of this month, to pave the way for the takeover of Simponi.

Simponi is a magazine associated with the supporters of the Indonesia National Party (PNI) and has now become a faction of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). The weekly enjoys strong circulation in East and Central Java and Bali. (par/emb)