Indonesia radio becomes voice for tolerance By Jerome Rivet 1 day ago
[excerpt] JAKARTA (AFP) A young radio news agency in Indonesia is attracting fans and international recognition for programming that eschews "infotainment" and focuses on hard issues like human rights and corruption. Founded 10 years ago after the fall of the Suharto dictatorship, KBR-68H is making the most of the liberalisation of Indonesia's media to spread values of free speech and religious tolerance across the huge archipelago. The country's only independent national news agency now has a network of more than 600 local radio affiliates and an audience of more than 18 million people in almost all corners of the mainly Muslim country. Co-founder and managing director Santoso said that in the era of Facebook and Twitter, old-fashioned radio was still the "cheapest and most flexible" way to reach a wide audience. "Our goal is to expand our network to Indonesia's remote areas such as central Papua, Sumba island or Maluku. It will encourage citizen participation and strengthen democracy," he said. As Indonesia is broken up into thousands of islands, the best way in KBR's view to reach listeners is to offer ready-made programming to community radio stations in each region. "We send eight hours of programmes per day -- news bulletins, reports and a lot of interactive talk shows," production director Heri Hendratmoko said. Full story <http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hcohyCWjvmZuKczY1CyY8ZBuYo6A> _______________________________________________ cr-india mailing list [email protected] https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india
