Public Relations as I think it should be
OK, let's get this out of the way: Unspun believes that voilence in retaliation for words is almost always not justified. Having said that, I cannot help but to think that Ade Armando and the society that has elevated him into a public icon of sorts has brought the violence upon themselves. Armando is of... Continue Reading →
As someone who trains the C-Suite on Media Handling Skills, what we in the PR profession sometimes shorten to Media Training, I can empathise with Naomi Osaka for not wanting to speak with journalists after her matches. At the same time I cannot but help wonder if Osaka was professional in citing mental health as... Continue Reading →
A battle royale is raging on Twitter between established online media houses including kompas.com, kumparan.com and professional buzzer @Kurawa and so far there have been threats of legal suits, applying the Draconian UU ITE and others. The story unfolded on January 5 when Rudy Valinka, aka @kurawa, tweeted an accusation against Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan for... Continue Reading →
For years we have been using Achmad Zaky interview tapes to demonstrate to media training clients what not to do when speaking to the Press or, in his case, to anybody really. That's because when he speaks before cameras the performance is usually cringeworthy for any PR professional. he usually comes across as cavalier, gruff... Continue Reading →
Recently I added another role to my LinkedIn account and have since been getting lots of well wishes but also a number of concerned questions on whether I had stopped working at Maverick to become advisor at The Palm Scribe. So here's a note of explanation to the concerned and the curious. The first thing... Continue Reading →
Alexis almost certainly has prostitution as one of its services and Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan is right to close it down if morality is his kind of thing. But shutting it down based on press reports rather than on hard evidence is worrying, as it sets a bad precedence of executive action based on suspicion.... Continue Reading →
This is what I wrote in the Maverick blog today Did Jokowi say the P word as reported by CNN? These are sensitive times. Since newly installed Jakarta Governor made his Protect Pribumis speech at his inauguration the P word has gained new political impetus. One thing about the internet is that what is old... Continue Reading →
We read the news every day but how much do we know about the editors behind the news? What informs their thinking and decisions? At Maverick we decided to find out about this important group of people the good old-fashioned way, by actually talking to them. Here, published in Maverick's blog, we talk to Arif... Continue Reading →
The Jakarta Globe has been interesting to watch since its birth in 2008, beginning with an idealism to start a quality newspaper against a trend of dropping readership in printed dailies. Unspun was skeptical of the paper's success from the start, a view that won him few friends in the startup paper then. But Unspun began to have... Continue Reading →
It appears that after months of having no one to tell the story on behalf of the Government and giving rise to uncertainty and confusion about government policies and decisions, President Jokowi may finally be taking a step in the right direction. According to the Jawa Pos News Network (below), he has appointed Teten Masduki and Sukardi... Continue Reading →
One thing about Indonesia is that it always surprises. Just when all of us thought that the Jokowi Government would user in a even more liberal regime that would value freedom of expression, comes news that the Police have indicted the Jakarta Post's chief editor for insulting Islam. The Post had carried a cartoon, demonstrated... Continue Reading →
How the worm turns. It now appears - from the news story below - that the Police, according to the Commission on Missing Persons and the Victims of Violence (Kontras), may have coerced a confession from the janitors at the Jakarta International School that they had sexually abused a student. Not only that but a... Continue Reading →
Unspun 