The venerable Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club has finally issued its newsletter called The Scribbler, just in time before everyone joins the Christmas exodus. The newsletter has two sections, Jalan Jalan – of journalists’ sometimes harrowing and/or amusing tales of reporting in Indonesia and tangoing with the authorities – and The JFCC Insider comprising gossip and buzz of journo movements and other activities.

Curious though that the journos chose a rather nostalgic-for-typewriter font, Courier New, when so many of them are being threatened by the new technology and the new media that is chewing up so many of their jobs. I suppose the idea of a blog would be too much of a shock for the JFCC (then it would have been able to scoop Unspun on Mellish winning the Walkleys, Algionby moving from the Guardian to the Financial Times – although still retaining his very entertaining article in Jakarta Java Kini – and the closure of the Washington Post. To be fair though, the journos all had the stories except that the medium they chose – the e-newsletter – had to wait for a publication date. So I Unspun thinks Courier New reflects the retro mood.

Unspun’s favorite story was this item in the JFCC Insider:

To Serve and Extort

The Jusuf Kalla JFCC lunch a few months back went down without a hitch. But things got slightly sticky in the aftermath. A group of police/security folk, apparently unattached to Kalla’s entourage and certainly uninvited by the JFCC, suddenly raised their hands as they plates were being cleared and demanded, er, lunch. Never mind that the VP had departed (apparently Kalla’s security on the road wasn’t a concern of these public employees), they wanted food, and now. Said plods were undaunted when informed that the meal was over – they instead insisted that the JFCC hand over cash so that the could sort lunch on their own. “Like ants at a picnic,” as The Insider’s mum would say.

Trying to cage a free lunch off journos? No wonder they’re in a mess.