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Najwa Shihab: Chronicling Indonesia
Over the past 17 years, television journalist Najwa Shihab’s life has mostly revolved around her career but since last year, she has taken up a new role that she loves.
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Television journalist Najwa Shihab (Kapanlagi.com/File)
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elevision journalist Najwa Shihab takes her role as the Indonesian Republic National Library’s duta baca, an ambassador with a mission to improve reading habits and interests among Indonesians, seriously.
“I am carrying out this literacy campaign across different regions. I’m excited to have so many local volunteers for this program,” Najwa, who serves the role from 2016 to 2020, told The Jakarta Post in an interview. “The most exciting part is when I go to campuses for both the Mata Najwa program and my duties as a literacy ambassador and meet students who are still highly enthusiastic.”
In November 2016, she also published a book called Catatan Najwa (Najwa’s Scribbles; Literati Publisher) — the first one in what is planned to be a series of book anthologizing the editorials of her popular weekly talk show Mata Najwa (Najwa’s Eyes) on Metro TV, a news channel where she has been working since 2001.
The new book itself collects the best editorials of her weekly talk show. The editorials, read out by her at the opening and closing of the show, summarize that particular episode’s topic of conversation in compact and concise sentences.
“Mainly, this book focuses on legal issues and politics, particularly the presidential transition that happened in 2014. This is why the book contains so many stories about President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo and [his contender in the 2014 election] Prabowo [Subianto]. But the issue isn’t limited to this topic,” she told the Post in an interview.
Najwa and her publisher plan to put out similar books focusing on other topics, like literacy and education.
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She said she was inspired by TV journalist Bill O’Reilly’s closing statements for his The O’Reilly Factor talk show on FOX to formulate the style of her editorials.
“During the last four or five years, it seems like our talk show has found the right format for our editorials. In the first two or three years, the format had pretty much been random since we were still looking for our own distinctive style,” said the 39-yearold daughter of prominent Muslim scholar Quraish Shihab. The editorials selected for the Catatan Najwa anthology are unique for its quatrain-like format, with witty, sometimes a little bit satirical, thoughts compressed into rhyming sentences.
One particular editorial, entitled “Pejabat Kekinian” (Contemporary Officials), seems to take a jab at the behavior of some public officials who seem to focus too much on creating an image and displaying charm on social media.
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Take a look: “karena jadi gaul saja tidak mencukupi, kepemimpinan harus tahan banting dan presisi” (because being charming alone isn’t enough; leadership requires resilience and precision). Turn the page and you will find some graphic design of icons frequently found on social media handles, such as “like” and “retweet” buttons.
Speaking about the penchant of many public officials and politicians for pencitraan (building image), do not even think of trying to use charm on Najwa if you are a politician craving popularity, as the journalist will scrutinize your words to the core.
Although she can be very relaxed when interviewing musicians or Indonesia’s everyday heroes, she is best known for her sometimes intimidating gaze and quick-working mind in testing the claims or words of politicians, which, at many times, can be very dubious.
“I don’t do it to corner them, but to hold them accountable, to make sure that what they say or claim is in line with hard facts and also to gauge their ambitions with their actual track records,” she says.
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“I don’t want them to use the show merely to gain the limelight,” said Najwa, who holds bachelor’s degree in law from the University of Indonesia and Master’s from Melbourne Law School.
To achieve this purpose, she said meticulous research was vital, just as in any journalistic works, and the research goes way beyond reading news clippings and checking the internet.
The talk show’s research team, for instance, once found that Banten governor hopeful Wahidin Halim’s free healthcare program had resulted in huge unpaid debts for local hospitals after they visited these hospitals to check the program’s implementation.
The team also tracks how many times a politician changes his stance regarding certain issues to scrutinize inconsistency. “Some US portals, such as Politico.com, also record the changes in a particular politician’s stance regarding certain issues in a flip-flop thermometer,” she says.
“Unfortunately, Indonesian politicians have no guilt about turning their backs on their words, even after we play them a video of what they said a few years ago right in front of them.”
Despite the not-so-good atmosphere of our political situations, Najwa remains optimistic and energetic, as her duties as duta baca keeps her spirits high.
Currently, the literacy campaign, which mainly targets millennials, focuses on the creation of digital libraries. It is also setting up a number of mobile libraries across different regions.
“Many people want to donate their books, but the obstacle lies in the high distribution costs. This is why we are now setting up distribution channels so that more people are able to have access to books,” she said.
