About The Jakarta Post

When The Jakarta Post was launched on Monday, April 25, 1983, newspapering was much simpler than it is today. Competition within the business was not as tight back then because there was practically no English-language newspaper that was up to standard in terms of content and language. Imported newspapers were not readily available, even in the big cities, and if they were, it was not until very late in the day, or worse, the next day.

    The initial eight pages of The Jakarta Post morning newspaper were not very impressive. Yet, that first issue laid a milestone in the history of media publishing in Indonesia.

    It was the first newspaper to be born of the shared ideals and the combined endeavors of a number of this country’s leading media publishers for improving the standard of English-language media publishing in Indonesia.

    These days, newspapers are no longer the predominant providers of news and views. Technology evolves constantly, opening up new options in communication and broadcasting to provide diverse real-time information. News becomes outdated only a few minutes after the event. In order to survive, newspapers have to redefine journalism.

    For this reason, The Jakarta Post has been working hard to revamp this newspaper, to reformulate its vision, to review every aspect of its operations and to reorganize itself in order to keep abreast with the needs and demands of its readers. In the process, we are rediscovering the real strength of this newspaper, which is its ability to seek, select, interpret, edit, package and distribute news and views and advertising. Accordingly, we are concentrating our efforts on improving that ability in order to develop The Jakarta Post as the information engine on Indonesia.

    The Jakarta Post started digitalizing its newsroom in 1993. Within a couple of years, our daily news and views were also made available through several global databases.

    In May 1999, The Jakarta Post bravely launched its own website, www.thejakartapost.com  to become a truly global media.

    Starting in October 2001, The Jakarta Post adopted a different look, with articles more concisely written but with the overall coverage remaining comprehensive. The newspaper became slimmer, but with more pages, and was designed to make it easier to read and to navigate, as well as being more convenient for readers who demand excellence. And during the day, www.thejakartapost.com keeps our readers informed on the latest happenings.

    Since May 2, 2005, The Jakarta Post has been publishing 24 pages on Mondays and Fridays, while remaining at 20 pages on other days. It plans to publish 24 pages every day starting later this year or early next year.

    The Jakarta Post not only has a new and different look, it is also redefining journalism, exploring relevancies beyond the news, trying to provide a meaningful context every time and supplying useful knowledge for our special breed of readers.

    This is a result of a long-term strategy based on the belief that for a newspaper, public trust is everything. People do not read a newspaper just for the news and views it provides. They read it because they trust it. And people do not give their trust easily

The Publisher