Unspun

Another month, another international newspaper pulls out of Indonesia and the region because of cutbacks in spending. The latest casualty is the Washington Post, which decided to to close its Jakarta bureau, which is also its Southeast Asian bureau, as of Jan 1, 2007.

With the international newspapers cutting back on their spending and on their bureaus overseas is it a wonder then that more and more people are resorting to blogs to get their information? The alternative to blogs are local media who aren’t always consistent or professional with their selection of news from either their own reporters – who aren’t always reliable – and news wires.

This gives rise to a perhaps simplistic question, but one worth pondering on:  Is it the rise of blogs that caused the circulation decline or the circulation decline  that causes the rise of blogs?

One casualty of the Washington Post’s retreat is Ira Pramudita, the bureau’s office manager. She’s now out of a job and looking for opportunities.

In their note to the Jakarta Foreign Correspondent’s Club, Washington Post correspondents Alan Sipress and Ellen Nakashima says this of Ira:

During her tenure with the Post’s Southeast Asia bureau, her duties included logistics, finances, bureau organization and some translation. She always fulfilled her responsibilities with professionalism and skill.

Ira can be contacted at: ira_pramudita@yahoo.com