Taking time and effort to shape our identity

Taking time and effort to shape our identity

The toughest problem a new publication faces is searching for
a personality, a distinct identity that gradually will be
accepted by its readers as its trademark. I faced this problem
during those first years after out launch on April 25, 1983.

Given the constrained role of English newspapers in non-
English speaking societies, an equally tough problem was to
establish The Jakarta Post as a paper rooted in the Indonesian
social political environment. It must not be a paper produced
exclusively for expats.

Of course, it was crucial that the Post developed its
editorial infrastructure. The managing editor, Amir Daud, was the
right person to tackle this technical matter.

We also were fortunate that during that critical initial
period we were assisted by a hard-working old hand from
Australia, Lionel Northover, who had worked for many years at the
West Australian daily.

He was a master in the art of newspaper layout and was strict
concerning matters such as story length and photo size, down to
the art of keeping headlines level. He also put great emphasis on
maintaining a strict working discipline so that, gradually, The
Jakarta Post managed to stay within its deadlines, overcoming the
pressures and constraints of that initial period.

Bill Tarrant, a freelance writer, joined us as a "language
consultant", but actually he took care of the front page.

Then, when the newspaper finally began to find its form and
routine and the working discipline was beginning to be
established, Amir Daud decided to leave.

On Dec. 13, 1985, a new Indonesian business daily, Bisnis
Indonesia, was published and Amir was offered the chief
editorship. Understandably, it was an offer that was hard to
refuse.

I must admit that at that juncture, The Jakarta Post found
itself in a difficult situation. Amir was one of the few
Indonesian journalists who mastered the technical competence of
newspaper publishing, and a tough disciplinarian as far as
newswriting was concerned.

I gathered a number of colleagues and explained the situation
to them. We all agreed that the Post should continue to publish
and that we should intensify our efforts to produce an attractive
newspaper.

Gradually, I also noticed that a new atmosphere was beginning
to emerge in the editorial room. There was a greater exchange of
views and the working elan was improving. As an example of this
improved team spirit, I always mention what happened when the
U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploded on Jan. 28, 1986.

Our deadline for the last news item to be accepted before the
newspaper was sent to the printing room was 11 p.m. Because our
newspaper was printed at the Kompas/Gramedia printing plant and
circulated through their distribution network, the deadline had
to be strictly observed.

Our offices are located just across the street from the plant,
and at 11 p.m. the few editors that were still around, including
myself, were already busy in the correction and layout room at
the Kompas printing plant.

The only person who was left in the Post's editorial room was
our office boy, Suyoto. At that time there were no computers in
our editorial room and e-mails were unheard of. We had to rely on
telex printers that delivered the news from wire agencies
throughout the world.

But Suyoto already knew enough about the mysterious
intricacies of news telex machines to realize that their bells
would ring whenever something important or urgent took place.

Approaching midnight, the bells rang. Suyoto glanced at the
machine and his English was adequate enough to realize that
something serious had taken place. He tore the sheet from the
machine and rushed with it to the layout room, saying, "Pak,
something has exploded."

We managed to insert a brief bulletin about the Challenger
explosion on the front page, confident that this time the breach
of our deadline would not scupper the printing process. After
all, we had alerted our colleagues at Kompas about the explosion.
I believe that since that time a sense of mutual appreciation has
grown between those of us working for a small and struggling
English-language newspaper and our colleagues at the mass-
circulation Kompas daily.

After some years, the Post developed a distinct editorial
position regarding issues of political development, environmental
problems, Southeast Asian regional conflicts and the Cambodian
problem in particular, as well as the then ongoing competition
for global supremacy between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Even
within the limited leeway that was available, the Post managed to
editorially advocate greater freedom of expression in order to
enhance political development in this country.

An excerpt from our editorial of April 23, 1988, may serve as
an example. Dr. Alwi Dahlan, a specialist in public communication
who studied under the noted Prof. Wilbur Schram, commented that
the Indonesian media failed to provide thorough coverage of the
recently held Constituent Assembly. Alwi Dahlan happens to be an
old friend of mine and the Post editorial responded as follows:

"... it seems to us that Dr. Dahlan's remarks, although
expressed out of sincere concern, need to be placed in a wider
framework of discussion ... In a more fundamental sense, we are
raising the question of whether the prevailing Indonesian
political culture which puts so much stress on consensus seeking
and on the need to maintain social and political stability does
indeed provide room for in-depth analysis and open discussion of
what the proponents of that consensus principle may well perceive
as destabilizing".

As far as I remember, however, one of the most traumatic
events occurred in early June 1988, when then State Minister of
Research and Technology B.J.Habibie threatened to close down the
newspaper. In the Post edition of Monday, May 30, 1988, we
carried an item titled Saudi Arabia cancels orders for CN-235
aircraft from RI.

It was written by our own reporter who, together with other
journalists, had been invited to Habibie's aircraft plant in
Bandung. The news source was reliable and the reporter on the
beat, Rikza Abdullah, was a dependable person.

Since the following day was a Hindu holiday, I was called by
minister Habibie to his office on June 1. The encounter took
place in a conference room in which the table was covered with
airplane models. In front of members of his staff, he angrily
rebuked me. I listened patiently, then offered to print his
counter-statement in the newspaper, which we did.

However, he also told me that he had reported the incident to
President Soeharto and the latter's comment was that action
should be taken against the Post because it was not supporting
national development. Knowing Habibie's closeness to the
president, I did not take the threat lightly. A number of Cabinet
ministers and senior military officers were contacted by the Post
to explain the situation, and the threat was not carried out.

Another important milestone in the Post's history occurred in
early 1990. Kompas was building a new office tower and the
editorial staff had to move to a temporary shack still within the
newspaper's compound. After the tower's completion, that shack
was vacated by Kompas.

I proposed to the board of directors that the Post's editorial
staff move to that shack while the old renovated warehouse across
the street that had served as our editorial offices for years be
torn down and rebuilt. Raymond Toruan, the Post's general manager
who was also connected to the Kompas managing team, applied
effective diplomacy by persuading the Kompas pension fund to
finance the construction of the new building. When I left the
Post in mid 1991 for a diplomatic assignment in Australia, the
new building was still under construction.

Fortunately I happened to be in Jakarta for consultations with
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when the new office building of
The Jakarta Post was inaugurated on April 15, 1992. The modern
two-story building was constructed on the former site. Officially
the building is owned by the Kompas/Gramedia pension fund, which
is why Jakob Oetama, the publisher of the Kompas daily and CEO of
the Gramedia Group, presided over the festive ceremony.

As I wandered about the modern editorial room equipped with
desk-top computers, I could not help but remember the Post's
former office - a renovated warehouse at the same location -
which buzzed with the clatter of typewriters.

Looking back, what do I value most being associated with the
Post since its inception? I guess it is the opportunity to work
together with people whom I did know quite well beforehand,
accepting each other's limitations while appreciating our
respective standpoints, jointly overcoming various problems in
order to realize the original idea of publishing a newspaper that
would be relevant to Indonesia's future.

And in a very personal sense, I was indeed grateful that in
carrying out the responsibilities of the first chief editor of
the Post, I obtained a valuable chance, as Dag Hammarskjold, the
second United Nations secretary-general, wrote in his diary
(Markings, 1964)," to remain a recipient - and be grateful.
Grateful of being allowed to listen, to observe, to understand".

Of course, there have been many events in this vast-changing
Indonesia that I could not fully understand. But, certainly, the
experience of listening and observing has enriched my personal
life.