Black Adder
12-11-08, 20:52
The Jakarta Globe
Jakarta Globe Website: http://thejakartaglobe.com/home/
New English daily seeks regional presence from Indonesia
JAKARTA (AFP) — Despite the global economic crisis and falling newspaper sales around the world, a new English-language daily is hitting the newsstands in Jakarta Wednesday with big ambitions of having a regional impact.
The Jakarta Globe is entering a market already saturated with Indonesian-language dailies and dominated for the past 25 years in English by The Jakarta Post (http://thejakartapost.com/).
But it has the backing of one of Indonesia's richest men, billionaire tycoon James Riady, and a new editorial team of locals and expats that senior editor Lin Neumann believes can make the full-colour broadsheet a regional player.
"We want to be compared to The South China Morning Post, The Straits Times and The Bangkok Post, as well as anything in the local market," he told AFP Tuesday on the eve of the launch.
"We're really trying to put out a paper that gains respect internationally and locally," said Neumann, former executive editor of The Hong Kong Standard.
Eleven months in the making from the time of the first planning meetings in December, The Jakarta Globe is set to be a 48-page daily with an emphasis on lifestyle and sports as well as local news.
Other executives have said it is aiming at a print run of around 50,000 copies, but Neumann would not be drawn on numbers.
Neumann said it had not been easy to start up a new newspaper in the midst of the worst global economic slump since the Great Depression, but he was confident Riady's Lippo Group could ride out the storm.
"It hasn't caused any concern yet. I hope this thing gets resolved and Indonesia isn't hurt too much by it, but it hasn't changed our models. The company thinks it's in a good position to survive this," he said.
Setting up the newsroom and hiring the dozens of reporters, photographers and designers required to put together a quality broadsheet had been a "huge task," he said.
"We've hired a whole newsroom full of people. We've built a newsroom from scratch. The newsroom used to be a carpark, there was nothing here," he said.
"It's taken almost 11 months to get it started. We never announced a launch date... When we ran into problems we took a deep breath and said the most important thing is to get it right."
As for the competition, he said The Globe did not want a war with The Post. The new paper will hit the stands at 8,500 rupiah (79 cents) each, compared to The Post at 5,500 rupiah.
"We believe there's a market for two broadsheet dailies in Jakarta. It's a big city and I believe, and we hope, that The Jakarta Post (http://thejakartapost.com/) agrees that competition is good for everybody," he said.
Questions have been raised about Riady's intentions in starting the new paper, and what it means for The Globe's editorial independence to be owned by a finance and banking group with interests across the Indonesian economy.
Riady was at the centre of a scandal of political influence in the early 1990s when he was accused of illegally buying favours from US president Bill Clinton.
In 2001 he agreed to plead guilty to a campaign contribution offense and pay the US federal government fines worth 8.6 million dollars.
Neumann said he was convinced Riady "wants to have a real newspaper" and not a mouthpiece for his commercial and political interests.
"We've had discussions about editorial independence since the first meeting. There's absolutely no interference in this newspaper and none anticipated," he said.
http://thejakartaglobe.com/home/
Jakarta Globe Website: http://thejakartaglobe.com/home/
New English daily seeks regional presence from Indonesia
JAKARTA (AFP) — Despite the global economic crisis and falling newspaper sales around the world, a new English-language daily is hitting the newsstands in Jakarta Wednesday with big ambitions of having a regional impact.
The Jakarta Globe is entering a market already saturated with Indonesian-language dailies and dominated for the past 25 years in English by The Jakarta Post (http://thejakartapost.com/).
But it has the backing of one of Indonesia's richest men, billionaire tycoon James Riady, and a new editorial team of locals and expats that senior editor Lin Neumann believes can make the full-colour broadsheet a regional player.
"We want to be compared to The South China Morning Post, The Straits Times and The Bangkok Post, as well as anything in the local market," he told AFP Tuesday on the eve of the launch.
"We're really trying to put out a paper that gains respect internationally and locally," said Neumann, former executive editor of The Hong Kong Standard.
Eleven months in the making from the time of the first planning meetings in December, The Jakarta Globe is set to be a 48-page daily with an emphasis on lifestyle and sports as well as local news.
Other executives have said it is aiming at a print run of around 50,000 copies, but Neumann would not be drawn on numbers.
Neumann said it had not been easy to start up a new newspaper in the midst of the worst global economic slump since the Great Depression, but he was confident Riady's Lippo Group could ride out the storm.
"It hasn't caused any concern yet. I hope this thing gets resolved and Indonesia isn't hurt too much by it, but it hasn't changed our models. The company thinks it's in a good position to survive this," he said.
Setting up the newsroom and hiring the dozens of reporters, photographers and designers required to put together a quality broadsheet had been a "huge task," he said.
"We've hired a whole newsroom full of people. We've built a newsroom from scratch. The newsroom used to be a carpark, there was nothing here," he said.
"It's taken almost 11 months to get it started. We never announced a launch date... When we ran into problems we took a deep breath and said the most important thing is to get it right."
As for the competition, he said The Globe did not want a war with The Post. The new paper will hit the stands at 8,500 rupiah (79 cents) each, compared to The Post at 5,500 rupiah.
"We believe there's a market for two broadsheet dailies in Jakarta. It's a big city and I believe, and we hope, that The Jakarta Post (http://thejakartapost.com/) agrees that competition is good for everybody," he said.
Questions have been raised about Riady's intentions in starting the new paper, and what it means for The Globe's editorial independence to be owned by a finance and banking group with interests across the Indonesian economy.
Riady was at the centre of a scandal of political influence in the early 1990s when he was accused of illegally buying favours from US president Bill Clinton.
In 2001 he agreed to plead guilty to a campaign contribution offense and pay the US federal government fines worth 8.6 million dollars.
Neumann said he was convinced Riady "wants to have a real newspaper" and not a mouthpiece for his commercial and political interests.
"We've had discussions about editorial independence since the first meeting. There's absolutely no interference in this newspaper and none anticipated," he said.
http://thejakartaglobe.com/home/