Jakarta radio station sees democracy drive deliver prize <http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25530680-36418,00.html>
Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta correspondent | May 25, 2009 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/ AN Indonesian experiment in promoting democracy and social justice through community news radio has won the world's most prestigious development prize. At least part of the E150,000 ($268,000) purse will be used to install solar panels for powering studios and equipment at the network's Jakarta station, which is known to its listeners as Green Radio due to its environmental focus. Veteran Indonesian journalist and KBR68H news agency founding member and executive director Santoso visited Brussels last week to accept the King Baudouin Foundation award. The biennial prize has previously been won by prominent institutions such as 2006 Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus's Grameen Bank for its pioneering work in microfinance among the poor of Bangladesh. Funded mostly by community support, KBR68H was established in 1999 as part of the Reformasi movement that had led to the downfall of the dictator Suharto the previous year, and which was rapidly toppling barriers for Indonesians seeking a space for free speech. It was part of an already strong artistic movement known as the Utan Kayu Community, named for the east Jakarta suburb that was the base of the group of progressive journalists, authors and social critics who coalesced around Tempo magazine founding editor Goenawan Mohammad. KBR68H and its Green Radio studios are still located at the same address, number 68H on the Utan Kayu main road -- hence the name. "When we set up it was a small, modest operation -- only six journalists -- but in the past 10 years the growth has been very significant," Santoso said from Brussels after receiving the prize. Our programming "is now taken by around 650 radio stations in Indonesia and Asia, so I think the progress report is very clear that we more and more give a service of information to the country". As well as operating the Green Radio station in Jakarta, KBR68H produces eight hours of news and current affairs daily, taken from its correspondents across Indonesia, which is then fed to the network's 650 regional affiliates. The model has been so successful that other organisations in places such as Nepal are studying how to reproduce it. Most of the eight hours are in Indonesian, although the flagship program, the weekly Asia Calling news bulletin, is in English. It is produced by an Australian journalist, former SBS Radio producer Rebecca Henschke. Asia Calling is broadcast right across the region, including on community radio in Australia -- something Santoso admits has helped create a binding tie between his outfit and Australian audiences. "We have a direct connection with the community (there)," he said. As well as its current affairs and daily news bulletins, the agency produces programs on a wide range of topics including law, human rights, education, the media and public health. It is a far cry from the news media scene under Suharto, when restrictions on free speech were extreme. Critics, especially journalists such as Santoso, were regularly sacked from their jobs, jailed and even "disappeared". The name of the country's peak human rights organisation, Kontras, founded late in the Suharto period, translates as The Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence. The changes since then have been profound. Indonesia is about to directly elect its president for only the second time and, Santoso joked, "just last week, the Vice-President spoke on one of our programs. You could not have imagined in the early days that a member of parliament would come to the studio". Santoso estimated KBR68H had trained "around 3000 staff in the last 10 years -- not just journalists but also on the technical, marketing and management side". More than just disseminating democracy and news, however, KBR68H has given itself a mandate to improve access across Indonesia to information -- including building radio stations in remote areas, such as Papua, powered by purpose-built mini-hydroelectric generators. "This is one of our visions -- that we not only make independent content, but we also address the quality of access to the network," Santoso said. "We are very concerned about that, because if we look around in certain parts of Indonesia, especially Papua, Nusa Tenggara, Maluku (all relatively under-funded eastern provinces), there are a lot of regencies that don't have access to local media." Copyright 2009 News Limited. _______________________________________________ cr-india mailing list [email protected] https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india
