Maverick Indonesia

Click Of The Week #24: Manda La Mendol

We Indonesian love to eat and if you happen to be heading toward Surabaya, with a hankering for “jajanan pasar” or street food you might find this blog, jagomakan, useful.

Kept by Manda La Mendol, the blog is a delightful list of the author’s intimate knowledge of Surabaya’s favorite food haunts. Manda is a journalist for East Java Traveler Magazine and Surabaya City Guide, magazines that focus on tourism, including food, around Surabaya. She also told Maverick through e-mail that she used to be a food taster for her grandmother’s food catering service. So she’s well qualified to write about food.

Manda, who used to work in local newspapers/tabloids like Kompetitor, Kredit, Berita Sore, Surabaya Pagi, and Mossaik, reviews the entire variety food in Surabaya and nearby areas, ranging from traditional food such as pecel terong, sate ponorogo, klepon, to international food such as dim sum, lobsters, and steaks.

Because of her blog, Manda has been appointed a moderator for milis Bango, a mailing list focused on traditional food in Indonesia.

So if you are Surabaya-boudn and a foodie like the Mavericks in this office are, you might want to check her blog before getting on board your plane.

Click Of The Week #23: Pepih Nugraha

Where can you learn to write? Well, if you aspire to write in Indonesian check out Pepih Nugraha’s Beranda t4 Berbagi (Verandah for Sharing). Pepih, who’s a senior journalist at Kompas, describe’s his blog as a “place for everyone who wants to learn about writing, especially if you work for the print-media.

His first lesson in writing is where to get the ideas for writing an article. Some people, he says, think that you have to go somewhere, to the beach or up a mountain, to be inspired. That’s a luxury for writers of fiction but not for journalists who have to write to deadlines. Story ideas, he says, are in fact everywhere in our daily lives - from our chats with other people, attending seminars or discussions or even when we’re window shopping in the mall.

His blog has interesting accounts of his daily life as a journalist, including interviews with the famous to traveling overseas on assignment.

Pepih is also an active member of Indonesia’s blogosphere. After starting his own blog in February 2006, Pepih joined Blogfam and contributes iarticles for its online Blogfam Magazine. You can check out his writing for the on-line magazine here. He also contributes articles to mediacare, a discussion group on the Indonesian media.

Keep on blogging Pepih.

Click Of The Week #22: Bagja Hidayat

Is it cool being a journalist? Ask this question to Bagja Hidayat, a Tempo Magazine journalist, and find his answer in his latest posting: “Wartawan Itu Enak, Kata Orang” (It’s fun being a journalist, so people say).

I know Bagja from his blog, but we’ve never had the chance to meet in person in the “real world”. A journalist friend of mine mentioned his blog to me when I was browsing through the Internet for tips on writing good articles. And what do you know…Bagja got all the answers.

When I read his blog for the first time, it reminded me about a book that I read years ago: Seandainya Saya Wartawan Tempo. The book presents basic news-writing skills and portrays some of Tempo journalists’ experience at work. I would say that his blog postings really represent what the book says about news writing.

Bagja’s blog is not focused on one particular issue. He tackles everything that catches his interest: social, economy, soccer, parody, and of course, journalism itself. Almost all of his postings are interesting because Bagja has the ability to deliver a common theme in appealing ways, making his postings enjoyable to read.

Check out his blog and decide for yourself: Salju di Paris.

Click Of The Week #21: Anugerah ‘Nugi’ Perkasa

….
I believe journalism can endorse democracy process through the true information, called the practical truth.
….

This quote was taken from “The Journey Of My Life” a blog by Anugerah ‘Nugi’ Perkasa. Nugi is a journalist at Bisnis Indonesia. Before he covered on the banking industry, he was a politic writer at the paper.

Prior to join Bisnis Indonesia, he was a reporter, covering Majelis Mujahidin, for Pantau, a foundation set up to train journalist. Pantau used to be a monthly magazine back then.

The posting on his blog are mainly from his article that appeared in Bisnis Indonesia.

Most of his posting begin with anecdotal leads of individuals, expanding into examination of bigger issues that they reflect or represent.

The topics he convey in the blog mostly touch on banking issues such as central bank, and insurance company. He also writes on political issues such as the fight of people who was accused of being member of the Communist Party of Indonesia.

The issues he writes on are interesting but his posting do tend to be long and a bit short of excellent.

Anyway, congratulation Nugi

Click Of THe Week #20: Taufik Hidayat

I was Googling websites with the keyword “PT Asia Tembakau” when I stumbled on to Taufik Hidayat’s blog, ‘Taufik Hidayat, tulisan dan pemikiran: Marketing and soccer’.

As the title suggests, Taufik, who reports for SWA magazine, blogs about marketing and brand strategies used by multinational an domestic companies operating in Indonesia. And, yes he blogs about soccer as well.

Taufik must rank among one of the most consistent Indonesian bloggers, chalking up at least five articles each month since he set up his blog on Wordpress in March 2007.

One of his postings that was particularly interesting for me was his insights into the way Coca-Cola was rejuvenating its product through the PosiFIESTA event that was held early January 2007 at Senayan, Jakarta. In the posting, which also appeared as an article in the June edition of SWA, Taufik said that the PositiFiesta event is a benchmark for Coca-Cola’s new communication theme, “Hidup ala Coca-Cola”, which is also part of the company’s global communications theme.

Taufik also keenly shares his comments and overviews on soccer league competitions on his blog. He sometimes also engages in predictions on which team would win.

His posts are always readable, no doubt because of his journalistic skills as the person in charge of the marketing column in SWA, where he has worked since 1999.

Keep blogging away Mas Taufik, you have such great stories to tell.

Click Of The Week #19: Zaky Yamani

This is a story of a young journalist in Bandung. The story of Zaky Yamani, who work at Pikiran Rakyat daily newspaper.
Pikiran Rakyat is a major local newspaper in Bandung.
I always remember Pikiran Rakyat, memories about a paper-boy (or man?) who delivered Pikiran Rakyat very early in the morning to my parent-house. Maybe this is the reason why at that time my father prefer to subscribe to PIkiran Rakyat than any other daily publication: our paperboy was able to delivered first thing in the morning, the earliest newspaper that we can get.
At that time, I always wonder: How do they prepared the newspaper, so they can delivered it very early in the morning? They must be a hardworkers. I really want to know what kind of people they are.
Well, Zaky Yamani is one of them.
Further more, his hard-work in journalism gives him an award from Aliansi Jurnalis Indonesia and Unicef for his coverage about children in this year.
While do some working as a journalist, Zaky also tried to run a blog. Through his blog we can see his daily activites, stories, and … his poem (well who would know that behind his tough-looking face he still have a romantic-side?)
In accordance to develop his blog, he sent invitation to all journalist who would like to participated in his blog. Just take a peek on his blog.
Congratulation Zaky!!!

Click Of The Week #18: Eddy Mesakh

Everybody has a story to tell, so does Eddy Mesakh, a journalist for Tribun Batam. Through his blog “Eddy punya cerita”, he shared his stories that really interest him. He mainly discusses local issues in Batam, ranging from human interest to the local economy, but also his daily activities as a journalist.

My favorite posting in his blog is “Terima Amplop Atau Tidak Ya?” where he describes his emotional conflict inside himself about amplop.

Amplop literary means envelope in English. However, in Indonesian Journalistic terms it is referred to money given directly to journalists from certain sources, so that an article will appear bias. In English I suppose you simply call it bribery.

It’s already public secret that not all media companies in Indonesia are able to give a proper salary to their journalists. While on the other hand, there is a financial need to paying the bills, spent money for household necessities, operational cost for reporting activities, and so on. The article Eddy wrote was pretty neat though.

By the way, while I was googling about Eddy and his published work, I found that Tribun Batam newspaper has already entered the blogosphere too. Tribun Batam’s blog can be found at http://blogtribunbatam.wordpress.com/. Too bad though that the blog is not frequently up-dated.

Congratulation Eddy Mesakh, keep blogging

Click Of The Week #17: Zeynitta Gibbons

Let’s go to London and visit our journalist friend; Zeynitta Gibbons. She’s a journalist for LKBN (Lembaga Kantor Berita Nasional/ Indonesia National News Agency) Antara for Europe and United Kingdom.

Born in Solok, North Sumatera, she moved to England in the beginning of this millennium (2001), with her husband JDR Gibbons.

Her blog mainly consist of all her reports for LKBN Antara, which vary from entertainment to politics. Her latest post is about Indonesia’s investment promotion in London after the Indonesian government officially announced the new regulation on investing in Indonesia.

Zeynitta Gibbons also tries to utilize her blog as a shop window for her services. We can rent some Indonesian movies, buy original handicrafts or just order some Indonesian cuisine.

One of my colleagues said that through her blog, Zeynitta Gibbons has make an effort to acquainted Indonesian culture to foreigners in London.

“They can order a real Indonesian food to taste our local cuisine, and if they want to know more about Indonesian culture, they also can rent Gibbons Indonesian dvd-movie collection or buy handicraft. What else you could ask?”

Congratulation Ibu Ita!!!