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.