The Jakarta Post
The Jakarta Post is a daily English-language newspaper in Indonesia. The paper is owned by PT Bina Media Tenggara and based in the nation's capital, Jakarta.
Not to be confused with Jakarta Globe.Type
Daily newspaper
PT Bina Media Tenggara (Kompas Gramedia Group)
25 April 1983
Jl. Palmerah Barat 142–143
Jakarta, Indonesia
Indonesia
The Jakarta Post started as a collaboration between four Indonesian media groups at the urging of Information Minister Ali Murtopo and politician Jusuf Wanandi. After the first issue was printed on 25 April 1983, it spent several years with minimal advertisements and increasing circulation. After a change in chief editors in 1991, it began to take a more vocal pro-democracy point of view. The paper was one of the few Indonesian English-language dailies to survive the 1997 Asian financial crisis and currently has a circulation of about 40,000.
The Jakarta Post also features an online edition and a weekend magazine supplement called J+. The newspaper is targeted at foreigners and educated Indonesians, although the middle-class Indonesian readership has increased. Noted for being a training ground for local and international reporters, The Jakarta Post has won several awards and has been described as being "Indonesia's leading English-language daily".[1] The Jakarta Post is a member of the Asia News Network.
Political stance and editorial opinion[edit]
The Jakarta Post officially endorsed the Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla ticket in the 2014 Indonesian presidential election,[25] their first time doing so in its 31-year history.[26] Kompas noted that it was the first time official support for a presidential candidate by a media outlet in Indonesia.[27] Indonesian Press Council considers The Post endorsement as "normal and valid".[28]
Partnerships[edit]
The Jakarta Post has a partnership agreement in place with state media outlet China Daily to repost its content.[29]
Editions and other publications[edit]
Sunday edition and J+[edit]
The Jakarta Post's Sunday edition was launched on 18 September 1994. The Sunday edition included more in-depth stories, as well as entertainment and fiction that would not be published in the weekday editions.[32] As part of cost-cutting measures amid declining print advertising revenue, the Sunday edition ceased publication in April 2016. It was replaced by a lifestyle and culture magazine called J+, which is included with the newspaper's Saturday edition.[33]
Online edition[edit]
The Jakarta Post features an online edition, which includes both print and internet exclusive stories that are free to access. There are also news flashes that are developed as they happen. The paper hopes to digitise the entirety of its printed stories, with at least 50,000 articles dating to June 1994 already digitised.[34] In 2017, The Jakarta Post began charging subscriptions in order to access "premium" online content.[35]
Market[edit]
The Jakarta Post is targeted at Indonesian businesspeople, well-educated Indonesians, and foreigners.[1][9] In 1991, 62 per cent of the paper's readers were expatriates. Under Pudjomartono's leadership, it began targeting more Indonesian readers.[18] As of 2009, approximately half of its 40,000 readers are middle class Indonesians.[23]
In 1996, The Jakarta Post faced invigorated competition when media tycoon Peter Gontha bought a controlling stake in rival paper The Indonesian Observer and revamped the publication.[37] However, The Indonesian Observer was unable to match The Jakarta Post's quality of independent reporting because of Gontha's business connections to the Suharto family. He stopped printing The Indonesian Observer in June 2001.[38]
In 2008, The Jakarta Post faced new competition, dubbed "a wake up call", when BeritaSatu Media Holdings, an associated company of billionaire James Riady, began publishing a rival English-language daily newspaper, the Jakarta Globe.[39] The Jakarta Globe even hired several defectors from The Jakarta Post, paying them higher salaries, and the Globe's print run was 40,000.[40] However, by May 2012, The Jakarta Globe converted from broadsheet to tabloid size, and in December 2015 it became an online only publication.[41]
When launched in 1983, a single edition of The Jakarta Post cost Rp175. By 2018, the newspaper cost Rp7,500 in Jakarta and Rp9,500 in Bali and Nusa Tenggara. As of 2018, subscriptions cost US$11/month for the online version and US$12/month for the printed version.[42]
Layout and style[edit]
The Jakarta Post follows a broadsheet format. In the beginning, it featured an index on the front page, as well as short offbeat stories under the title "This Odd World". The lifestyle section had eight comic strips, and it used more photographs and graphics than was normal for Indonesian publications at that time. The editorials tended to be shorter than their Indonesian counterparts.[11]
The Jakarta Post uses the inverted pyramid style of reporting, with the most important information at the beginning of the article;[14] during the 1980s, many Indonesian papers put the lead further down.[9] Bill Tarrant attributes this to the different writing styles in English and Indonesian, with English favouring the active voice and direct statements, while respectful Indonesian favours the passive voice and a circuitous approach.[21] Regarding this topic, Wanandi has said that "You cannot bullshit in English, like the Javanese way."[14]
Public opinion[edit]
Peter Gelling, of The New York Times, notes that The Jakarta Post has been considered a "training ground" for local reporters, and offers apprenticeship programs. In 2009, six former The Jakarta Post reporters worked for Bloomberg.[23] In 2014 The Jakarta Post was behind Kompas in terms of online visits.[43]
Awards and recognition[edit]
In 2006, the Reporters Union of Indonesia recognised The Jakarta Post as being one of the Indonesian newspapers that best followed journalism ethics and standards; other papers recognised were Kompas and Indo Pos.[44] The paper received the Adam Malik Award in January 2009 for their reporting on foreign politics; the coverage was considered accurate and educated, with good analysis.[45] The following year three reporters received the Adiwarta Award from Sampoerna for excellent photography in the fields of culture, law, and politics.[46] Another journalist received the Adam Malik Award in 2014 for his writings which assisted the ministry to distribute information regarding foreign policy implementation.[47]
The Union of Print Media Companies (SPS) conferred on The Jakarta Post two awards of the 2020 Indonesian Print Media Awards (IPMA) in a National Press Day event in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, on Feb. 7, 2020.[48] The Post brought home the gold award for the Best of Investigation Reporting for its Oct. 29, 2019 edition. The publication featured a special report written by reporters Victor Mambor and Syofiardi Bachyul titled "Wamena investigation: What the government is not telling us". The report was a collaboration among journalists of the Post, Jakarta-based Tirto.id and Jayapura-based Jubi. They conducted an investigation in the field in Wamena, Jayawijaya regency, from Oct. 3 to 10 and discovered what the government had failed to reveal.
