HERITAGE AND JOURNALISTS

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Journalists are important partners for heritage activists. Journalists and their media play an important role in setting an agenda in local and national issues. Lately, the Trowulan case appeared to the surface -more or less- was also part of the media's work. When I was in Medan, I had relatively friendly relationships with some journalists. Some of them were genuine in their interest and support for heritage conservation. They wrote issues based on facts and interviews, did their best to do their part in our efforts to save the city's identity. Some of them looked merely for publicity without bothering reading press releases or backed-up information. The result was poor articles with inadequate judgements. I felt sorry and pity for the last type of journalists. But I guess in any professions there is always someone who doesn't try good enough to be professional.

Since I moved to Holland, I learned to know a journalist of Warta Kota, DM, who then studied in University of Maastricht. She studied city marketing. After she finished her study, she went back to Jakarta and keeps writing on heritage topic. I have found out that she is behind the section "Wisata Kota Toea" (Old City Tour) in the largest national newspaper in Indonesia, Kompas. The Old City Tour section is more like a separate website attached to the electronic version of Kompas. It contains a lot of information about the past, present and hopes for the future of the old part of Jakarta. I was so happy to find this initiative since I often received and encountered with the issues of Jakarta Kota here in Holland. Through this website at least I have current reference of what is going on there. Also to be a lit bit more optimistic that probably through a website will leads to the improvement of the Jakarta Kota, that all information is gathered in one source instead of scaterred from all directions and end up unnoticeable. I would like to wish my friend, DM, a goodluck and hopefully the website will not only stay long but also up-to-date. Check it out yourself : http://www.kompas.com/wisata

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