Politics and the Press in Indonesia

This article will explain how one of Indonesia’s richest and most powerful man, Aburizal Bakrie, came to purchase the Surabaya Post in 2008 and the consequences of this purchase. For the journalists who work for this daily Indonesian-language newspaper, the change of ownership affected how they could report the mudflow disaster on the outskirts of Surabaya, in which the Bakrie-controlled company, Lapindo-Brantas, was implicated. Through testimony from Surabaya Post journalists, this article sheds light on what can happen to when an owner with a vested interest in shaping the news decides to purchase the paper. The result is a dramatic decline in the autonomy of its journalists to accurately cover issues relating to the owner. The hindrances to journalist’s autonomy exposed in this case study are a concern for greater press freedom in the archipelago.