National Press Day was this week, our relaunch is Monday.
I have seen and experienced in my Indonesia career, two narratives. The Wests and the local, dogged, newsgathering reporter. The latter has fed into the former.
The relationship has exposed great truths, helped topple corrupt public figures (or is it corruptors?) and given way and weight to the wave of political changes that swept through the country since 1998. An incredible media landscape and one that is shaping the world.
Its also created hysteria abroad in its influence of foreign perceptions of the country, with touchstone issues in foreign countries determining that a local issue becomes a foreign policy issue for Indonesia: just look at drugs or the death penalty.
Theres also terrorism, no laughing matter for anyone in any country, but then there is the FPI or the 112 and the anti-Ahok rallies. There, neither the culture of protest post-1998 nor the intricacies of Indonesian politics are part of the story.
I have expressed anger about this in the past, most recently about the Balochistan hospital bombing.
But anger isnt really the message. Its just that, I want these guys to get over it and get married!
Run with me here.
Think about this, its hard to think of any other country with the depth of stories that Indonesia has to tell. It is hard to think of one so peculiarly overlooked.
Now stats: Google population of indonesia and look at the graph. Thats 249.9 million. That is a conservative estimate. Now consider the problems with birth certificates, and pause to ask yourselfwhat does that mean?
Most of those people are very young or young, and they are big time players online.
When you have a spare 30 minutes to an hour look at this article from Dave Chaffey at Smart Insights and the embedded presentation made by Simon Kemp, but here are the key points:
In 2016:
Now that technology to produce video is widely available and cloud computing is here. The final edge has been erodedindustry knowhow and production costs. All thats left to do is teach the skills and train minds to sift through the rubbish and peoples agendas.
Because with the Internet came infinite information. As Pandoras box was to the Greeks; the Internet is our Origin Myth.
Is it a hoax?
Fake news is just the new vessel for brutal partisan struggles fought for millenia, different times, different topic, different medium. This Reuters Tweetwars article about social media battles in the platforms capital city (Jakarta) captures the dilemma. I directly experienced its reference to Indonesians pushed off Twitter to fight their battle on rival platforms.
My last opinion piece, in which I expressed sympathy with young men marching in anger in Jakartas streets, was met with a string of Facebook comments, lots of choice words, all accusing me of a hoax. The photo, of a young man kicking a burned effigy in the head, is syndicated from the Associated Press.
Fake news, info wars, rival claimants to the truth its all going on.
With this challenge comes an inevitable change.
I hope it starts with us, and I hope you like our new website.
Tweet @blaisehope Ill get back to you.
(brl/red)
