Maverick Indonesia

Click of The Week #30: Jarar Siahaan

“My conscience kept breaking out when I wrote for the Paper. Too much lies and interests,” Jarar Siahaan said as he explained why he finally poured his thoughts in this blog instead.

He added that being a regular journalist should mean possessing an independent soul, not only from state pressure, but more importantly freedom from the interests that control the media, including businesses and politicians, whom for him do more harm and bury the truth.

Direct, forceful and always on the edge, typical of people from the Batak Land. That’s my initial impression as I read the entries in Jarar Siahaan’s blog.

Articles in this blog are stories from the Batak Land; and his musings on the issues of religion, faith, ethnicity and politics. There is even a corner for “media critics”, a special forum for criticisms, complaints, appreciation or comments for readers of print media.

Jarar said he regularly sent his postings from this corner to the Press Council to help them in monitoring the media, and as a learning tool for media consumers to be critical of what was presented in conventional media.

One thing that interests me the most from reading Jarar’s blog is that he keeps his blog postings free from any religious, political and party interests. Let’s see how this blog evolves. One thing certain is that since it was launched in March 2007, it has attracted over 255,000 hits in its first month.

Jarar Siahaan has been a journalist since 1995. He has worked at several media houses such as Medan Post, Global and Radar Medan. He is currently running his blogs in blogberita.com and jararsiahaan.com.

*nominated by Lia.