Unspun

Globe going daily?


The Lippo Group is increasing its reach into the Indonesian media scene, this time by launching a English-language business daily, Unspun‘s sources say. The paper is to be called The Globe and it will be manned by heavy hitters from regional publications.

The Globe is a follow up from the English-language business magazine the group launched in January called Globe Asia. The magazine, which seems to specialize in compiling lists of the rich and the powerful – Indonesia’s richest, 50 largest philantropists, Indonesia’s most powerrful women etc. etc. – has apparently doing quite well even though you’d be hard pressed to read a hard hitting story in its pages.

With the Globes, the Lippo Group would have made itself even more powerful in the media industry. They already own Investor Daily,  Suara Pembaruan (which makes them part owners of The jakarta Post), Investor Magazine, View and Kabelvision, Direct Vision, and First Media among others.

You wonder why the groups is so in love with the media and to what ends this ownership will be put to use on.

Nevertheless, it will be a welcome addition to the English-language media in Indonesia. For too long th field has been dominated by The Jakarta Post, which has become arrogant and lazy in its monopoly, so much so that most of its journalists would not recognize a good story if it came up and bit them on the bum.

The last challenger was The Point but that paper just can’t get its editorial and circulation acts together so it never posed any threats to the Post’s dominance. With regional heavy hitters coming into the fray, and the Riadys’ deep pockets The Globe may at last give the Post a run for its money. One can only hope it does and force the Post to eat some humble pie for a change.

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3 responses to “Globe going daily?”

  1. dave rerimassie Avatar
    dave rerimassie

    Whatever has happened (will happen) to the Jakarta Morning Observer? Is it the one going to be “converted” into The Globe? If that’s really the case, isn’t it just another example of a “now-you-see-now-you-don’t” kind of business the Riadys have always been so fond of doing?

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  2. qvut Avatar
    qvut

    I’m all in favor of improvements in Indo’s English-language print media, if only because I find the local tycoons’ enthusiasm for a dying medium touching, if slightly bizarre. But I wouldn’t put much stock in the puffery coming out of the Globe Asia offices about plans afoot to hire “regional heavy hitters” (something of an oxymoron anyway) and promising to put out a publication worth the paper it’s printed on. Why so cynical? Well, remember the buzz the preceded Globe Asia’s launch? It was originally supposed to be Forbes Indonesia, until Forbes got a better idea of the talent pool they’d be working with and backed out. Fast. Globe Asia’s debut was a resounding anti-climax and the few journos with any creds that they’d been touting as regular contributors quickly walked away in disgust or got squeezed out by the glossy “Tattler”-style copy that now predominates. I met one of GA’s local journos at an investment forum a while back and was shocked by his ineptitude and complete lack of nous. Somebody’s brother-in-law or a laid-off driver, by the looks of him. And if any serious journos actually are tempted by flash cash that Lippo might be laying out to give the new paper some initial credibility might want to read the fine print of their contracts verrry carefully, as the Singaporean bloke they hired away from Biz Times to be Globe Asia’s figurehead editorial chief had to change his name to something Malay in order to get the job. Pays the rent, I suppose.

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  3. A Neumann to head new paper in Indonesia « Unspun

    […] 4, 2008 by unspun Unspun sniffed it in the wind some time ago. But now, finally, word is out that the Lippo Group, euphoric from publishing its good news […]

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