Chapter 8 - Journalistic Circus: A Look at Photojournalism in Indonesia and the History of the Antara Gallery of Photojournalism

Summary

JOURNALISTIC CIRCUS FROM INFILTRATORS TO JUST ONE WORD: FIGHT!

I got into the field of journalism by chance. One evening when I was hanging out with friends, I saw an advertisement in Kompas newspaper announcing positions in a national press institute. The advertisement listed only a PO Box number and a need for 27 new recruits, who would later be trained as editors (11 new positions) and reporters (16 new positions). ▶8.1

Embracing the mystery of the profession, I unconsciously began to tread into the wilderness of journalism. Step-by-step I passed the seven entrance exams before I finally escaped that small hole and was thrown directly into the educational experience as an intern in the center of the Antara News Agency at Wisma Antara, 17 South Merdeka. I didn’t know much about what was going on at Antara at that time because journalism was not at all an idea that had scratched my little brain, not even in the days of my boyhood when a human child begins to babble about desires or dreams.

Under these conditions, I began to explore the institution of the press, which was established just eight years before the nation emerged as an independent Republic. At that time, the Antara training organization was indeed improving their educational standards to train recruits into a newer journalistic standard. In a year and a half, I successfully passed the Susdape class (Basic Reporter Course). I then started venturing from market to market, to courtrooms scattered around Jakarta, looking to find news as a “rookie” reporter for Antara which was still known as an old-fashioned press office. A cool press office, despite living under the oppressive control of the New Order, must be able to find ways to escape even the most tight fisted regime.

When Antara was led by Handjojo Nitimihardjo (now deceased), a former Airforce Officer, the agency had a vision for journalism based on the revolutionary era. His father, Maruto Nitimihardjo, was a figure of the national press, and also a member of a youth group that participated in the kidnapping of Bung Karno and Bung Hat- ta, known as the Rengasdengklok Incident. One important event, one night, before Sukarno and Hatta proclaimed Indonesian independence on August 17, 1945, early one morning during the month of Ramadan, at the home of Bung Karno, 56 East Pengangsaan Street.