Australia’s watching: where is Walhi, Newmont and the other players?

31 Wednesday Jan 2007

Posted by unspun in blogging, communications, Crisis and issues management, environment, Indonesia

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Update (Feb 1): Walhi’s just declined to get into any discussions via e-mail. Here’s what Rindurni, Walhi’s officer for media and communication has to say:

“I’ve read your blog and my oppinion is there’s nothing we (Walhi) could discuss further about such topic you’ve thrown on your blog since you started it without critical question about ‘how businesses and NGOs can work together to protect and improve the environment’ like you said in your email below. i don’t know what your intention here but we refuse to answer your call to put our organization in such ‘brutal’ discussion in your blog.

thank you for your email.”

Unspun doesn’t really know how to insert a “critical question about ‘how businesses and NGOs can work together to protect and improve the environment’ “. So here’s the deal: If Walhi would like, Unspun would be glad to make a posting avaliable in this blog for Walhi where you can frame a discussion which includes the critical questions on how businesses and NGOs can work together to protect and improve the environment and we start a discussion there from scratch.

Unspun is greatly encouraged that Walhi has taken the time and trouble to respond so far and I think that there is so much potential here for Businesses and NGOs to start a dialogue on how they can work together to for the betterment of the enivorment and society.

On January 25th, partly because of the huge unanswered questions surrounding the alleged pollution of Buyat Bay, I posted an Open invitation to business and Indonesian NGOs to address the question of whether NGOs do more good or harm to Indonesian society and the economy.

The case that triggered the invite was the Buyat Bay case in which Newmont Indonesia head Rick Ness facing a prison sentence if found guilty by the Indonesian court system for the alleged crime of “polluting” Buyat Bay. The only catch is that — according to authoritative sources such as CSIRO — threre is no pollution. Yet Ness is facing a traumatic time for the past, I think, two years mainly because of allegations of pollution brought up by the NGO Walhi and its associated organizations. Walhi et al got Newmont in trouble because they claimed that the plant there caused Minimata disease. Since then they have been mighty quiet about it.

The Jakarta Post’s Weekender

30 Tuesday Jan 2007

Posted by unspun in Indonesia, Media

≈ 1 Comment

The Jakarta Post is to be congratulated for, finally, coming up with its Weekender magazaine. Only that the Weekender is now a monthly and, if things go well, will be a forthnightly magazine. So a more apparoprate name would be The Second Weekender.

So much for the name. What about the content? It is 68 pages thick and on well produced on quality paper. But one has to wonder what the paper is out to achieve with the Wekender. Ideally, the Weekender should be aimed at the young Indonesians who are comfortable in English with large disposable incomes and are the future readership base of the newspaper, who’s readership is aging and will die off soon.

If such is the case then you’d expect the Weekender to be a light, lively read with lots of snippets of information on where to go, what to do, which band to watch and what to eat, Something informative and fun. Continue reading »

Taking the Piss in Queensland

29 Monday Jan 2007

Posted by unspun in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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stuff

Taking the piss takes on a new meaning in Queensland, reports the BBC.

JFCC 2007 lineup

29 Monday Jan 2007

Posted by unspun in Indonesia

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foreign correspondents

The Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club held their AGM last Thursday and John, the columnist for JakartaJava Kini, continues to lead the club for the second year running. The Straits Times’s Devi Asmarani got the most votes. Joe Cochrane continues in the crucial position of club secretary, where he can arrange many more freeflow events that are much appreciated by the club members. The results:

President        : John Aglionby : 34 votes for, 2 against
Vice President: Moritz Kleine-Brockhoff : 32, 3
Treasurer        : Jason Tedjasukmana : 31, 4
Secretary       : Joe Cochrane : 30, 2

Four other committee positions:

1. Arijit Ghosh (Bloomberg news) 30 votes
2. Anthony Deutsch (Associated Press) 27
3. Devi Asmarani (The Straits Times) 47
4. Michel Maas (De Volksrant) 22
5. Chad Bouchard (freelancer) 23
6. Ghafur Fadyl (Associated Press) 13
7. Dandy Koswaraputra (Aljazeera) 17
8. Jan Lepeltak (De Telegraaf) 13
9. Rebecca Henschke (68H) 33
10.Esther DeJong (Trouw Daily) 20

Another step toward the future of journalism, blogging and PR?

28 Sunday Jan 2007

Posted by unspun in blogging, journalists, Public Relations

≈ 4 Comments

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blogging

CNET’s journalists are expected to answer every question that comes in through the blogs and reader comments, and get involved in every debate that has legs, reports The Guardian.

“The more that you demonstrate your trust, the more users will input into the community,” says Suzie Daniels, head of business media at CNET. “If you want to steer the conversation, even invisibly, you have to be in it and it is incumbent for journalists to be part of that.”

Adam Air KI 574: a tragedy in Jakarta and Sulawesi

28 Sunday Jan 2007

Posted by unspun in blogging, communications, Crisis and issues management, Indonesia, journalists, Media

≈ 2 Comments

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blogging, News and politics

It has almost been a month since Flight KI 574 went missing. Now we have news that the black box has possibly been located but that the Indonesian authorities may need the help of other countries with more advanced technology to retrieve it from the sea bed. Unpleasant as this matter is, it at least gives the grieving families some closure of the fate of their loved ones.

Unfortunately there is not even a hint of any closure of the issue opened by the events surrounding KI 574: aviation safety, or the apparent lack of. In spite of President Susilo Bambang Yudhono ordering the Transport Minister to investigate all aspects of all airlines, there has been no apparent progress at all on this front.

The only development that the public knows about was some half baked threat with the ludicrous proposal that all airline executives and shareholders be held responsible for air crashes. At some point was also news that Adam Air would compensate the families of the victims Rp500 million for each victim.

But that is all. After nearly a month that has been the extent of non-progress that the Transport Minister has achieved. Continue reading »

Globe Asia Launch

25 Thursday Jan 2007

Posted by unspun in communications, Indonesia, journalists, Media, Public Relations

≈ 3 Comments

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spin doctoring

Unspun was chuffed to be among the washed, great and good of Indonesia’s business community at the launch of GlobeAsia at the National Museum last night. Why Unspun was invited in such exalted company when the height of his accomplishment was to cage a drink from the JFCC, first at Cinnabar and then at the Face bar is anyone’s guess. But hey, one never knocks a chance at some free tipple, event if it was Rosemount Estate.

Unspun was even more chuffed when he was introduced to one of the owners of the magazine and was told that he occasionally reads Unspun. A reader! He was a likeable, polite, young chappie who even thanked Unspun for his input in his last posting about GlobeAsia. That put Unspun in a good mood all today — until he spied on today’s Investor Daily.

There, on Page 10, was a full page advertisement of the Globe’s inaugural issue. And below, right at the bottom of the page is still precisely the oxymoronic piece of copywriting that Unspun wrote about in the last posting, The world’s most formidable business magazine.

Adam Air KI 574 Black Box found?

25 Thursday Jan 2007

Posted by unspun in communications, Crisis and issues management, Indonesia

≈ 1 Comment

Unspun’s sources say that the US navy ship may have found the black box and wreckage of Adam Air KI 574. The ship apparently detected heavy debris scattered over a wide area and are verifying to see if it is the wreckage from the missing aircraft. They have also detected pingers on the same frequency as the plane’s black box…

There should be details emerging in the wires soon.

Open invitation to businesses and Indonesian NGOs to respond

25 Thursday Jan 2007

Posted by unspun in blogging, communications, environment, Indonesia

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

blogging, Culture Clash, Walhi

It is good to see readers Oigal and Moshe speaking up against what they felt was injustice done to Rick Ness and other businesses by NGOs (see Pledoi and the Sheepish NGOs).

Unspun has long felt that environmental NGOs such as Walhi (here we have to be careful as different provinces have different levels of militancy) have been exploiting the public and journalists inclination to be skeptical about Big Business for their own ends. The make often wild accusations and the local Press, ever gullible, swallow these allegations whole and spit them out in the next day’s papers.

Many a business have been hurt as a result. The motivations of these self-appointed do gooders aren’t altruistic either. Often all the NGO wants is to create enough noise so that the affected business would pay them off or be seen instrumental in shutting down a Big Business operation so that they can get funding from well-meaning but gullible Western organizations.

Badawi on bloggers and responsibility

24 Wednesday Jan 2007

Posted by unspun in blogging, Malaysia

≈ 8 Comments

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blogging

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has said that bloggers must blog responsibly and be subjected to the law, in short they can’t have freedom without responsibility.

Hurrah. The more important question that must be asked is what is the Prime Minister of a country commenting on a civil suit between a newspaper and two bloggers? Since when has civil suits between two parties been of such national or political significance that the Prime Minister must wade in to give his two sen worth?

Anyway, this is what he said:

“The law is the law. They cannot hide and hope to be protected under some kind of a cover or whatever they think that they have,” the Prime Minister said. Abdullah said it was obvious that for bloggers and for journalists of other media, duty and responsibility must go together.

“And if you want freedom, what is freedom without responsibility?” he asked. “I don’t agree with freedom without responsibility. Freedom without responsibility is anarchy. Actually, it is being irresponsible,” he added.