Skip to main content

Archives: Dispatches

All Lingua Sinica Dispatches

Kumparan

Written by Editors on .

Kumparan is a digital news platform that launched in January 2017, founded by media executive Hugo Diba. The Jakarta-based platform combines traditional journalism covering politics, economy, and business with social media features, including user feeds, allowing ordinary users to create and publish content alongside professional journalists, and personalized content recommendations. According to Chief Marketing Officer Andrias Ekoyuono, Kumparan aims to “redefine Indonesian media” as the country’s first hybrid online news site. The platform received funding from GDP Venture, the investment arm of Djarum Group, a major Indonesian conglomerate founded by the Hartono family in July 2017, before it acquired majority control in 2024.

PT Media Nusantara Citra

Written by Editors on .

PT Media Nusantara Citra Tbk is an Indonesian media conglomerate founded in June 1997 that operates four major free-to-air television stations: RCTI, MNCTV, GTV, and iNews. The company, which went public on the Indonesia Stock Exchange on June 22, 2007, claims that it produces more than 20,000 hours of content annually, including drama series, animation, and entertainment programming. PT Media Nusantara Citra operates digital streaming platforms RCTI+ and Vision+, and manages news portals such as iNews, SindoNews, and Okezone.

PT Bina Media Tenggara

Written by Editors on .

PT Bina Media Tenggara is an Indonesian media company founded in late 1982 as an independent newspaper institution to publish The Jakarta Post, an English-language daily newspaper based in Jakarta. The company was established as a private entity owned by four competing Indonesian media groups:  the online daily newspaper Suara Karya, the national newspaper Kompas, the weekly magazine Tempo, and the evening daily Sinar Harapan. PT Bina Media Tenggara operates as a limited liability company with its headquarters in Jakarta.  

Djarum Group

Written by Editors on .

Djarum Group is a family-owned Indonesian conglomerate company founded in 1951, when Oei Wie Gwan (黃惠源) acquired a nearly defunct cigarette manufacturer in Kudus, Central Java. The company is now controlled by brothers Robert Budi Hartono and Michael Bambang Hartono, and produces tobacco products, having also diversified into banking, technology, and media. In December 2024, Djarum’s venture capital arm, GDP Venture, acquired news platform Kumparan for 60 million dollars, consolidating control after earlier investments.

China Daily Runs Inserts In Jakarta Post

Written by Editors on .

The Jakarta Post, an English language newspaper published by Indonesia’s PT Bina Media Tenggara, a media and consulting firm, reportedly signed a content-sharing arrangement with the Chinese government-run China Daily (中國日報) in 2016 to regularly publish a “China Watch” (看中國) insert. The specific date of the agreement, however, remains undocumented in public sources. China’s Mission to ASEAN stated in October 2016 that the cooperation “opens a new window for the Indonesian people to understand China.” The Indonesian newspaper’s editor-in-chief characterized the collaboration as “purely commercial,” telling Voice of America that China Daily “buys space for ads for its content” with disclaimers, and that there is “no editorial collaboration.” Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, director of China-Indonesia Studies at the Center of Economic and Law Studies, noted in an interview with Taiwan’s Central News Agency in 2023 that the paper republishes content from China Daily and Xinhua (新華社), as well as articles by Chinese ambassadors. According to CNA, The Jakarta Post has published a full-page insert from the People’s Daily (人民日報), the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, every Friday since late 2023.

Jakarta Post

Written by Editors on .

The Jakarta Post is an English-language daily newspaper in Indonesia, founded in 1983 by four Indonesian media groups — the online daily newspaper Suara Karya, the national newspaper Kompas, the weekly magazine Tempo, and the evening daily Sinar Harapan — under the auspices of then-Information Minister Ali Murtopo and politician Jusuf Wanandi. The newspaper expressed its aim at the time as creating a credible English-language publication that provides an Indonesian perspective to the English-speaking community. Now owned by media company PT Niskala Media Tenggara, the paper covers politics, business, culture, and economics. The Jakarta Post has a content-sharing agreement with China Daily (中國日報), established in August 2019.

CMG Hosts 2020 European Media Cooperation Forum

Written by Editors on .

On December 10, 2020, China Media Group (中國媒體集團) hosted the 2020 European Media Partners Cooperation Online Forum, which the state-run China Global Television Network (CGTN) called a “Mutual Trust Dialogue for Win-Win Cooperation.” Representatives from several European countries were reportedly in attendance. The CMG president Shen Haixiong (慎海雄), also a deputy head of the Central Propaganda Department, used the forum to advocate for deeper media cooperation on pandemic coverage. The event featured the launch of China Business Video, a collaboration between the state-run CCTV+ and Reuters (archived) that “provides Reuters’ customers with financial news content from China,” according to a CCTV+ readout. CCTV+ also reportedly signed a memorandum with the European News Exchange (ENEX) to establish the European Media Partners initiative and launch BizToday, a program on the CCTV+ platform described in state media coverage as a joint Chinese-European news program. The forum exemplifies CMG’s strategy of cultivating media partnerships to expand its international influence.

Reuters Agency

Written by Editors on .

Reuters is a British news agency established in London in October 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter, a German-born entrepreneur who pioneered the use of telegraph technology for news transmission. The agency provides news content, multimedia, and financial data to media organizations, businesses, and professionals globally through its Reuters Connect platform and various information services. Reuters currently employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists, posted at approximately 200 locations worldwide and producing content in 16 languages. The agency has won more than 300 awards for its news coverage in the past decade, including 2024 Pulitzer Prizes for National Reporting and Breaking News Photography.