When the going gets tough, the media gets urban.

TEMPO news magazine launched its first lifestyle magazine on 3rd December, titled U Magazine or U-Mag. On its launching event, Toriq Hadad as the editor mentioned U-Mag as a magazine that explores and exposes subjects on urban communities.

TEMPO’s sudden approach to the young people demographic is surprising to most, knowing for around 25 years TEMPO magazine is the nation’s most politically and culturally influential news magazine. Its founder and previous chief editor, Goenawan Mohammad, is one of Indonesia’s leading literary figure and present chief editor, Bambang Harymurti, is considered one of the journalistic icons for press rights and free speech.

As Janet Steele describe for her book, “Wars Within: The Story of Tempo”: “All aspects of TEMPO’s history, including its roots in the literary and cultural milieu of the 1960s, its economic organization and management, its internal culture and system of deciding what’s news, and its strategies for survival within a repressive press system, provide a window into the political and cultural history of Indonesia’s New Order.” Not to mention the magazine had history of being blacklisted by the government (Soeharto regime). Will embracing the urban lifestyle understate TEMPO’s image? Or will it compliment it?

The letter U in U-Mag stands for urban, as it is its primary theme. Prior to the début of U-Mag, two other mainstream media industries have launched their own urban schwags. Just couple of weeks before, Kompas officially established URBANA for every Monday reading, a section targeted specifically to young professionals; unfortunately URBANA offers barely any editorial articles on urban cults and the section holds more advertisements and flyers than actual content.

On January 2007, The Jakarta Post introduced the Weekender; Weekender is published in form of a full-fledged, full colour magazine supplemented for The Jakarta Post subscribers and purchasers for free. Weekender outsources its Lifestyle and News special reports from The New York Times Sunday Magazine and aims the city’s professionals and expatriates for their readership. Unlike Kompas URBANA, Bruce Edmond as editor of Weekender, clarified that the editorial “want this to be a “good read”, providing readers with an entertaining, thought-provoking exploration of the issues that affect their lives.”.

Tempo, Kompas, and The Jakarta Post are Indonesia’s top media giants in the country, ready to branch into the realms of, well, the surface of some realms. On the brighter side of things, the genre could build positive appreciation which expectedly will improve the society’s awareness to urbanity and its dynamic.

Will we see TEMPO’s revolutionary journalism spirit burning in its U-Mag offspring, or will this just be another product of sensationalism? Will it provide substantial raison d’etre even if the French word does not sound as cool as crème de la crème? Will it treat the young professionals as mere statistic of consumers, as baits for advertisers, or actually reach out and be intimate with the mosaic of their life potentials, life choices, and life complexities that lies underneath the surface?

We’ll see.

Images courtesy of TEMPO, Kompas, and The Jakarta Post.

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