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Let me get this straight. In Indonesia, the people in charge of running the country—ministers of the environment, migrant workers, small enterprises—are now moonlighting as news anchors. They’re taking turns sitting in a fancy new studio, reading from a teleprompter, and playing journalist for a day.
And we're supposed to think this is... cute? Fun?
The official story, as part of an event where Prabowo's Ministers Make Their News Anchor Debut on Beritasatu TV, is that B-Universe Media Holdings is celebrating its shiny new studio in PIK 2, and what better way to break it in than by inviting President Prabowo Subianto's cabinet members to cosplay as Anderson Cooper? The Migrant Worker Protection Minister, Abdul Kadir Karding, was practically giddy, saying, “How fun! I think I can become an anchor in the future and take over your roles.”
Yeah, I bet you do. I bet you’d love to take over their roles. It’s a hell of a lot easier to control the narrative when you’re the one literally reading it out loud on national television. This isn't a celebration. This is a dress rehearsal.
The Performance of Power
Let's not kid ourselves. When a politician says an experience was "fun," what they usually mean is that it was an excellent photo-op that made them look powerful, yet somehow, miraculously, also relatable. Deputy Cooperatives Minister Ferry Juliantono admitted to being nervous but said, "Turns out that this is such a fun job." He also had a profound revelation: "It turns out what we are seeing on TV is the result of collaboration between different units.”
Wow. Groundbreaking stuff. A politician discovered that a television show requires a crew. Give the man a Peabody.
This whole spectacle is a masterclass in soft propaganda, meticulously crafted to be just palatable enough for public consumption. It's like watching a fox being invited to host a documentary series on henhouse security. The fox tours the facility, praises the innovative new locks, interviews a few chickens about their sense of safety, and signs off with a charming wink to the camera. It’s all smiles and professionalism, but the underlying power dynamic is so grotesque it’s almost comical. The very people whose decisions and policies are the news are now the ones delivering it.
What news are they even reporting? The source material is conveniently silent on that little detail. Was the Environment Minister reading a segment on a new government-approved mining project? Did the Minister for Small Enterprises get to announce a new tax policy that just so happens to benefit his allies? The conflict of interest isn't just a risk here; it's the entire point of the exercise. It’s a power play disguised as a party, a demonstration that the line between the state and the press can be erased with enough bright lights and a friendly producer.
And what about the journalists at Beritasatu TV? The actual, trained professionals? They’re reduced to props in their own studio, playing tutor to a minister who finds their career to be a fun little diversion. Minister Karding even joked about wanting to come back every weekend. Offcourse he does. Why bother with pesky press conferences and reporters asking tough questions when you can just cut out the middleman and inject your message directly into the public's veins? This ain’t journalism; it’s a state-run puppet show, and they’ve just unveiled their brand-new, high-definition puppets.
Welcome to the Content Machine
This isn't just about a few ministers having a laugh. This is about the normalization of a media landscape where access and accountability are replaced by performance and partnership. B-Universe Media Holdings, which runs a whole suite of outlets from Beritasatu.com to The Jakarta Globe, isn't just launching a studio; it's announcing its new business model. And that model appears to be: we are open for government business.
Think about the chilling effect this has. How is a reporter from Investor Daily, one of their own publications, supposed to write a critical piece on the Cooperatives Ministry after its Deputy Minister was just yukking it up in their studio, being treated like a celebrity guest star? It creates a culture of coziness, of unspoken arrangements. You scratch our back with a "fun" on-air segment, we'll go easy on you in our next investigative report. Or maybe we just won't do one at all.
This is a bad look. No, 'bad' doesn't cover it—this is a five-alarm dumpster fire for journalistic integrity. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect to see in a country where the state-run media is the only media. But here it is, happening out in the open, framed as a quirky bit of lighthearted news.
I can just picture the scene inside that studio. The sterile, cold air-conditioning blasting to keep the politicians from sweating under the hot, unforgiving LED panels. The floor manager, probably a 25-year-old kid who actually studied journalism, having to give pointers to a 60-year-old minister on how to read with the right "intonation and emotion." The whole thing is an absurdity. They’re all so busy congratulating each other on how well the performance is going that nobody seems to be asking the most important question: who is this actually for? Who is the audience for a Migrant Worker Protection Minister reading the news? Is it the migrant workers? I definitly doubt it.
The real audience is other powerful people. It’s a signal to the entire political and corporate class in Jakarta. B-Universe is a friendly space. A safe space. Come on in, the teleprompter’s warm. And honestly, maybe I'm the crazy one here. Maybe this is just the future, a seamless content synergy between government and media, and we're all just supposed to get used to it...
Just Smile and Read the Script
Let's be real. This isn't a media company launching a studio. This is a government finding a new, more effective way to hold a press conference—one where they control the microphone, the camera, the script, and the anchor's chair. It’s the complete erosion of the fourth estate, repackaged as light entertainment. They're not reporting the news; they're manufacturing consent, one "fun" broadcast at a time. And the most terrifying part? It looks like it's working.