Tempo/Bismo Agung

Cracking scandalous cases was not love at the first sight for senior journalist Hermien Y. Kleden, but something she gradually fell in love after a few thrilling moments got her hooked.

The recipient of this year’s SK Trimurti Award recalled that back then, she was allocated to investigative journalism rather than actively choosing it herself.

 “But as a journalist, you’re trained. And somebody has to do it, even though many challenges await you,” she adds.

Challenges, at last, sound nothing but sexy for a journalist like Hermien, who dedicates her professional life to digging into scandals to reveal the truth.

And with public interest at the core of her work, the senior journalist for the weekly magazine Tempo went on to receive the SK Trimurti Award in recognition of her dedication to the freedom of information and her contribution to democracy.

Hermien, however, was slightly uncomfortable about receiving the award, which is dedicated to female journalists and activists.

She confessed that she felt uneasy with people congratulating her for winning the award, which is named after the late Soerastri Karma Trimurti, a female journalist, independence fighter, politician and former labor minister.  

“I’m nobody compared to the great Trimurti,” said the 46-year-old deputy executive editor of Tempo.

“The award was really out of the blue.”

She’s still surprised about the award she received in mid October and has not yet included it on her latest curriculum vitae, recently received by The Jakarta Post. She laughed when she was reminded about it.

“I don’t know what to do about it,” she says of the first award she has ever received.

“I’ve been doing my job as usual throughout my 19 years of journalism. I haven’t produced anything spectacular in the past five years,” she says humbly.

“I think there are a lot more people, in this case female journalists, who are much better than me.”
No matter what she says, the award’s jury was convinced of her contribution to press freedom,
represented through her investigative reports written with her Tempo colleagues.

Throughout her career at Tempo, where she first joined in 1998, Hermien has investigated and exposed many cases of corruption and illegal logging among other crimes and social justice issues.

 “Investigative journalism is a crossroad,” she says, referring to the term that is used metaphorically for a place where the physical and the abstract meet.

“So, whether it’s about institutional crime or whether it’s a drama, you can see the crossing lies in an investigative report.”

Among her long-list of investigative reports, she cherishes her reports about a corrupt World Bank project and an illegal logging case in the Tanjung Puting National Park conservation area in Kalimantan.

The World Bank case highlighted the dark side of National Education Ministry officials, who were accused of colluding with book publishers, resulting in the poor quality of school textbooks despite the fact the project was worth some Rp 1.4 trillion (US$140 million).

Hermien’s investigation, which took place in 2001, also revealed that the textbooks contained many harmful mistakes.

The latter case, on the other hand, incriminated a member of the People’s Consultative Assembly who was allegedly responsible for illegal logging in the Tanjung Puting conservation area, activities that cost the state $8 million in losses every year.

The report also criticized the ignorance of authorities who failed to prosecute the alleged perpetrator, a powerful man in the country.  

“Investigative journalism is not easy,” says Hermien, who is also the executive editor of U Magazine. “We’re just journalists, we don’t have the same access as police and prosecutors, yet we are still trying to prove crimes.”

She describes how being a muckraker is very dangerous, as well as the warning mantra she repeats
to all of her reporters: “Don’t act like a hero!”

However, she says, the thrills and chills of investigative journalism always payoff at the end of the day — after the story is published.

“An investigative story has to go out because the public has the right to know what is happening,”
she says.

And honesty, she adds, is at the center of each report.

“The basic thing in journalism is honesty,” she says.

“You have to be honest in your reporting, in how you tell the story. It’s not for your own sake, but for your readers’ sake; for the public’s sake.”

And side-by-side with honesty, she says, is independence — something that puts journalists on an equal footing with all members of society.

 “Being a journalist is not a fancy job,” she says.

“As a journalist, we might not become rich, but we can get something other professions don’t get: equality. With our independence, we’re in the same position as anyone else in society.”

Noting that journalism is a job that requires a true calling, Hermien says someone has to consciously choose the profession.

 “As a journalist, you encounter many tough days as unpredictable things happen,” Hermien says.

“But because you chose to become a journalist, because it’s your calling, then those hard days can be dealt with.”

Journalism did beckon Hermien, even though it wasn’t her original childhood dream. Born in the small village of Waibalun, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, the sister of renowned intellectual figure, Ignas Kleden, wanted to be a teacher just like her beloved father.

Life, however, took the 12th of 13 children to study communications at Gadjah Mada University in
Yogyakarta.

“The first time I arrived in Yogyakarta to study, I was all amazed when I saw people were driving cars,” she laughs as she recalls.

“I was just a kampung kid that carried a water pot on my head, and collected firewood from the forest.”

Hermien, who says she doubted her intelligence during her university years, worked as an English/Indonesian teacher in Yogyakarta before graduating. It was then that she found her passion for journalism.

She became a contributor for several media organizations and joined Matra magazine in 1993. After five years, Hermien continued her career at Tempo, where she honed her investigative journalism skills.

“During my first three months at Tempo, I cried! I wanted to quit,” she laughs.  “But I was told to hold on, and I finally got through it.”

However, she did more than just get through it, she fell in love with investigative journalism.

“It’s a blessing for me because not every journalist gets the chance to write investigative reports,”
she smiles.

“Personally, I think any reporter who has the chance to write investigative reports, along with features and in-depth stories, is very lucky as that is the art of journalism.”

“You just need a lot of elements to produce such writing. Good research, good interviews and sound writing skills,” she says.  

“Just like the fashion industry, investigative reports are the haute couture of journalism.”

And it is this “haute couture” that Hermien wants to pass onto the younger journalists.

“I might not become a teacher, but I can still share my thoughts with young reporters.” 

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