Introduction
Video journalist (VJ) has been part
of television journalism industry in Indonesia for about the last fifteen
years. Introduced in the midst of 1990s, VJ has started to become more popular since
the early 2000. I have found out that it coincided with the coming of five new
commercial TV stations in Indonesian television industry: Metro TV, Trans TV,
TV 7 (now Trans 7), Global TV, and Lativi (now TV One). The era was coined as
“the second wave of commercial TV stations” (Hendriyani et al.,
2011). Since then, Indonesia has had ten national commercial
TV stations. The other five TV stations were established during “the first wave
of Commercial TV stations” in the late 1980s to the early 1990s, they are: Rajawali
Citra Televisi Indonesia (RCTI), Surya Citra Televisi (SCTV), Televisi
Pendidikan Indonesia (TPI – now MNC TV), Andalas Televisi (ANTV), and Indosiar (Hendriyani et al.,
2011). As the number of players has increased, so has
the competition.
In this essay, I argue that VJ is
the fruit of the intensified competition within the Indonesian TV news industry.
Furthermore, economical aspect was the main
reason behind it. Thus, I argue that technology is not the determinant factor
in changing journalism practice. In the VJ context, as the example in this
essay, the basis of the change is very broad. Not only economically influenced,
VJ is also the fruit of a dynamic interaction between social, cultural, and
political aspects in Indonesia. However, in this essay, I point out that
technology still plays its role as the facilitator of the change. To elucidate
it, I focus my essay by examining the emergence of VJ in Indonesia, mainly, from
its historical perspective.
Methodology
To write this essay, I have interviewed
six persons (by phone and email) who have been part and/or the witness of the
emergence of VJ in Indonesia. Two of the interviewees are senior journalists who
have reached vice editor-in-chief position in national and international TV
stations in Indonesia. And the other four interviewees have worked as video
journalist and reached medium rank journalist with the level of (minimum) news
producers. This essay is also based on my personal observation during my three
year experience working as a video journalist from January 2006 to January 2009,
particularly, during the Gaza War in early 2009. I rely mostly from the
interviews, my experience and my own observation as there are not any reliable literatures
about this topic.
Discussion
What is VJ?
VJ is a television journalist who
produces news single handedly. He is the camera person, the reporter, the
narrator, and the video editor (Bock, 2012, Wallace, 2009, Rintala and
Suolanen, 2005, Hemmingway, 2005).
However, in Indonesia context, I have observed that not all video journalists
do the video editing function to finalize a ready to air product. However, most
of VJs do the editing function, at least in terms of short listing and cutting
the raw material video which is most possibly used by the video editor. Thus,
in this essay, I categorize VJ as a person who does the report and video
recording.
There are three types of VJ in
Indonesia: (1) employee, (2) contributor, and (3) stringer (Yulistiawan, 2013, Wahyudi, 2013, Nugraha, 2013, Maulid, 2013).
Employees are those who have a full-time contract (with full benefit such as
health insurance, marriage financial support, etc.), monthly-paid and fully
facilitated by the TV stations. The facility includes camera kit,
motorcycle/car, and laptop. Contributors are those who work for certain TV
stations and will only be paid if their news product is broadcasted. They do
not have access to the benefits provided for VJ with employee status. However,
they generally earn much more income to be compared with the employee as their
journalistic product is paid relatively high (Maulid, 2013, Nugraha, 2013, Biesman, 2013).
Stringers are those who worked for certain contributors and paid by the
contributors.
VJ, the result of competition
The emergence of video journalist
has an indirect connection with the collapse of Suharto regime and the changing
of media culture in Indonesia. It suggests that political change has enabled VJ
to flourish. During the Suharto regime, news program on commercial TV stations
are strictly regulated (Hollander et al.,
2009). The commercial TV stations had had news
programs. However, those programs were only covering non-political issues (Wahyudi,
2013). Furthermore, the commercial TV stations were obliged by the Indonesian
government to relay news program which was produced by Televisi Republik
Indonesia (TVRI), a state-owned TV station. This condition had made news
programs on commercial TV stations unattractive for the largest audience, thus hindered
the growth of TV news sector business (Kitley, 1994).
Political transitional period in early
1998 had brought a new media culture in which TV stations started to broadcast all
kind of news, including political issue which was previously prohibited (Hollander et al.,
2009). As a result, news had started to become
commercially-attractive. This trend corresponded with the emergence of five new
commercial TV stations in early 2000 that also started to produce their own
news TV programs. As the competition has intensified, the idea of “faster is
better” in the industry has become the norm to win the competition (Yulistiawan, 2013, Biesman, 2013, Maulid, 2013, Nugraha, 2013, Saputro, 2013).
And VJ is believed, could answer the challenge.
Without ‘appropriate’ technological support, VJ was introduced
Imam Wahyudi (2013), a former vice editor in chief at RCTI, said that the concept of VJ has been informally
applied in RCTI in the middle of 1990s. It was incidental, he explained, as it
was not part of the company’s official agenda. There was only one reporter who could
operate camera and function as a VJ. The reporter was assigned to cover an
issue as a VJ if there were not any camera person available.
.…[it
happened] when camera was very big with weight about 10 – 15 kilograms. There
was only one person who could do it…. My reporter (Iwan Malik) was from
Surabaya Bureau. I have found out that during his tenure in Surabaya, he used
to learn by himself how to operate camera. Therefore, if we did not have enough
camera person, I frequently assigned him to bring the camera including HT
(handy talkie) for news hunting. At the beginning, it was just in case of an emergency.
However, he could do it with passion with an excellent result… The practice was
not institutionalized as it was considered too risky. (Wahyudi, 2013)
RCTI officially adopted VJ as a
profession in 2001-2002. RCTI’s Journalists were trained and tested to be a VJ.
Not all participants became the VJ. At the first batch, there were only four
journalists who passed the test and got the VJ certificate. Those with the VJ
status were given specific target, thus were also rewarded special allowance (Wahyudi, 2013). Similar with the RCTI case, VJs in its
earliest period were mostly based at the main office with the status of an employee.
VJs who are not based in the main office are called “contributor” or “stringer”.
They do not have employee status, for example, in the case of Metro TV.
Metro TV, an Indonesian first
news TV station established in November 2000, started to have VJ in 2002. Until
2004, Metro TV had had five VJs in five regions: Cirebon, West Java; Bandung,
West Java; Aceh; Jogjakarta; and Lampung (Nugraha, 2013). During this period VJ was not popular. In
Bandung, for example, there were only two VJs, one from Metro TV and another
one from TV 7 (Nugraha, 2013). TV stations mostly relied their news supply
from outside Jakarta by employing or sending a full team which consisted of a reporter,
a camera person, and a driver (and a team of technical support for live
report). To ensure the supply of news content from other regions, the commercial
TV stations set up news bureau in largest cities, such as, Medan, Bandung,
Semarang, Surabaya, and Makassar (Wahyudi, 2013, Nugraha, 2013).
Adwitya Widi Nugraha (2013), a former VJ at Metro TV, explained that as
the internet was not as good as today, he used to send the mini-DV cassette from
Bandung to main office in Jakarta (the distance is about 200 km) via plane
cargo or train. Using this method, the cassette would arrive at main office in two
hours (plane) and four hours (train). The remaining commercial TV stations
started to adopt VJ into their journalism practice after Indonesian General
Election in 2004. Learning from the biggest political event in Indonesia, it
has been argued that VJ is the most efficient and effective way to produce a
news (Nugraha, 2013).
In Bandung, West Java, since
2004, five commercial TV stations have gradually closed their news
representative offices (Nugraha, 2013). The five TV stations: Indosiar, SCTV, RCTI,
ANTV, Trans TV replaced their news team in the city by a VJ with contributor
status. This trend was adopted nationally. And now, all national TV stations
have VJs in their main offices as well as in almost all Indonesian provinces.
The cheaper, the better
Economical motive has been widely
argued as the main reason behind the growing number of VJ in Indonesia (Biesman, 2013, Maulid, 2013, Nugraha, 2013, Yulistiawan, 2013).
This argument corresponds to the fact that VJ has been widely adopted by
Indonesian local TV station with small budget (Biesman, 2013). For example, Elshinta TV (ETV), the first
local news TV station in Indonesia which is located in Jakarta in which I began
my career as a VJ, has adopted VJ since its day one broadcasting in early 2006.
All of their journalists (twelve of them) were VJ. They were trained for two
weeks by Indosiar news department (Indosiar is ETV’s parent company). Other
local TV stations which also adopted VJ are B-Channel in Jakarta (Yulistiawan, 2013) and STV in Bandung (Biesman, 2013). The different is that, in national TV
station, the number of VJ is smaller to be compared with the number of traditional
news team. While in local TV station, VJ dominates the composition (Biesman, 2013, Maulid, 2013, Yulistiawan, 2013).
The economical reason can be clearly
illuminated based on my own experience. During the Gaza War in late 2008 and
early 2009, five Indonesian commercial TV stations sent their VJs to Gaza, in
which I was among the VJs. TV One, where I worked, was the only TV station who sent
two VJs. Initially, TV One was about to send a reporter and a cameraman. The
decision was cancelled and TV One immediately decided to send two reporters who
can operate the camera as well. This decision, I argue, was very successful as
TV One could have two VJs who could report two different news packages at the
same time. This strategy was not only economically more efficient, but also has
enabled TV One to win the competition with others Indonesian TV station in
reporting the war.
In Indonesia, VJ has also become
the best solution to tame Indonesia geographical condition. As the largest archipelagic
country in the world, Indonesia has 13,466 islands (Kemenkokesra,
2012) which scattered in three different time
zones. It also has 34 provinces and 497 regencies (Faqih and Ahmad,
2013, KPU, 2013). Strategically, it is a lot cheaper, faster
and easier to employ a VJ who lived and posted in certain region to report a particular
event. Having a full team in a particular region or sending it from main office
to the region is a lot more expensive as the management must provide more budgets
to support the team. For example, sending a team, which consists of male or
female members, could spend a lot more money.
You know, if
we send a team which has a female reporter and a male camera person, it means
that we have to provide two hotel rooms. (Biesman, 2013)
The peculiarity of VJ in
Indonesia is that most of them ride motorcycle to access news sources. Motorcycle
itself is widely used in Indonesia (there were 77 million motorcycles in 2012
in Indonesia) as it is considered as the most flexible, fastest, and cheapest
vehicle (Sugiyanto et al.,
2011, Joewono et al., 2013, Indriastuti and
Sulistio, 2010, POLRI, 2013).
Motorcycles which are widely used in Indonesia have small engine capacity, from
80 centimeter cubic (cc) to 160 cc and the average consumption for a liter of
petrol is between 30 – 60 kilometers (km) (Ahira, 2013).
Traffic problem and lack of road
infrastructure were among some other reasons that make motorcycle widely used
by VJ. In big cities like Jakarta, Medan, and Surabaya which have massive
traffic congestion, motorcycle becomes the best vehicle to escape the problem.
In rural area, motorcycle also becomes the solution as it can reach the most
remote area with lack or no access road for car. The usage of motorcycle by VJ also
has been enabled by the fact that video camera with broadcast standard has
become slimmer and lighter.
Conclusion
It has been pointed out that economical,
social, cultural, and political aspects were behind the reasons why VJ has been
widely adopted in Indonesia. It has been explained that the number of VJ has
grown significantly as competition started to intensify in the TV news sector
in early 2000s. During the process, economical aspect has become the most
dominant factor in promoting the change of TV journalism practice. It has been argued
that VJ could save a lot more money as the company needs only to pay one person
for (minimum) three jobs: reporting, video recording, and driving. It also
saves accommodation and transportation cost (motorcycle is cheaper than car, as
well as its petrol consumption).
The story of RCTI suggests that
the concept of VJ was implemented even when the camera was not user-friendly
and not as compact as today. The story of Metro TV suggests that internet was
not also the main reason why VJ emerged. Both stories imply that that
technology was not the main reason behind the emergence of VJ in Indonesia.
Technology does play its role in
enabling VJ to be easily and widely accepted in Indonesia. Camera with
broadcast standard has become smaller, lighter, and cheaper. Thus, it has
enable journalist to bring camera without great difficulty. VJ now could write
script and edit the video with laptop, tablets or mobile phone and send it
directly from the location to the main office. However, I would like to
emphasize that VJ was embraced because of the need within the news industry itself.
Subsequently, “the need” needs technology. Thus, technology has been part of
the change through facilitating the work of VJs. Finally, I may conclude that,
even without the most recent technology, VJ will always be there.
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