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View all search resultsPrint media can go but not journalism
Given this sad situation amplified by the pandemic, sociologist Ariel Heryanto insists the world, with its divisive crises, still needs journalism.
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K
oran Tempo published its last print edition on Dec. 31, 2020. The final front page of the tabloid, now a collector’s item, contains the image of a smart phone in actual size at the center of a blank white spread. The screen on the digital hand device displays firebrand Muslim cleric Rizieq Shihab, founder-head of the now-defunct and hard-line Islam Defenders Front (FPI). Above his white-turbaned head are the black, bold-typed letters F P I with a red-cross drawn over them.
Under the image and next to a barcode is an advisory in small print. “IMPORTANT: Starting tomorrow, in-depth coverage of the Islam Defenders Front only at koran.tempo.co or in using the Tempo Media application.”
“We are terminating the print edition, the first print run of which was on April 2, 2001, to transform fully to a digital platform,” chief editor Budi Setyarso stated in a letter from the newsroom.
Budi explained that data had shown long before the COVID-19 pandemic that readers had left the print edition and switched to digital.
Indeed, the migration to digital is worldwide. Many mainstream print media are on the internet. The first Indonesian daily to have an online outlet was Republika, launched Aug. 17, 1995. However, fewer papers like The Jakarta Post are steadfastly maintaining their print edition.
In an end of year 2020 assessment note, the independent Press Council of Indonesia cites two issues the domestic press faces today. First is the issue of media sustainability. Second is media professionalism and protection for the press.
With regard to the first issue, the press faces disruption with the growing penetration of the digital platform business. As in other countries, digital platforms have become influential in public life and are earning greater amounts of advertising revenue, thereby hurting conventional mass media.
