It seems that the rumors, gleefully repeated by journos in The Jakarta Post, about the demise of the other English-language daily The Point has been premature.
Of late there has been many rumors about how The Point was about to close; how it was having difficulty paying its staff and how the money was drying up.
Apparently not so. Ever the curious cat, Unspun got wind when something was moving with The Point when he looked at hsi blog stats and found an unusual number of hits for posts related to The Point. (Lesson for issue managers: if you blog about something enough- see here, here and here -you get first hand dips on sensing something is up with the issue/organization if you see extra number of hits on the postings).
Having acquired the habit of going to source instead of relying on hearsay from his journalism days, Unspun sms’d The Point’s pointwoman in the editorial floor, Riris Irawati. Wassup, asked Unspun, any of those rumors true?
Riris replied that not only were thos rumors untrue but The Point was, in fact, holding a cocktail function on August 20 to officially launch the paper. Not only that but the paper was also holding a seminar on the aviation industry in the morning of that day.
So there to the naysayers of The Point. Not only does it not refuse to die but it is acting like it is functioning on a second wind brought on by new investors. Are there new investors? Riris would not say but she has a dictum on rumors: “Nver confirm or deny rumors!”
So now some people in the rival paper the Post will be a little disappointed that The Point will not be facing an early death. Others in the Post, however, Unspun knows first hand will be delighted by the news. Their rationale: more competition better – it drives the salaries for journalists up. So here’s to the free market and competition.
Unspun 
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