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Following the downfall of Suharto regime in the late 1990s, I read a piece on Indonesia politics in Time Magazine, USA, written by Goenawan Mohamad, then the Editor-in-Chief of Tempo Magazine. There’s a brief CV in the end of his piece: Author of book Sidelines published by an Australia’s publisher. What non-Indonesian were unaware is that the Sidelines was actually the english version of Goenawan Mohamad columns in Tempo Magazine called Catatan Pinggir, the exact translation of Sidelines.
Budi Putra, himself incidentally a content manager for online edition of Tempo Interaktif, seems to be following his boss foot-step by translating into English all his Bahasa Indonesia column in Koran Tempo and put it in his blog. That’s a step in the right direction. While Goenawan Mohamad needs a special translator to make his column into a book, Budi Putra on the other hand, saving the time by translating it everytime his column got published in Koran Tempo. Certainly, that’s a sort of book in waiting.Making a book is obviously not a distant dream for him as he’s already published four books, mostly IT related and are written in Bahasa Indonesia.
He’s also won several awards in the field of journalism and writing contest and that’s why Tempo Media, the best Indonesia magazine, hires him.Even with so many achievements in a relatively young age, he still looks so eager to learn more to everyone –even to those whose achievements are not at par with him–a strong indication how down-to-earth personality he’s got.
It’s a common temptation for anyone who has attained a particular achievement and certain popularity in whichever field to feel being needed more than he/she needs others. I don’t see that kind of attitude in him. That’s a treasure everyone should be eager to have.
As far as I can see, Budi Putra is the most active Indonesian blogger, beside Yosef Ardi, with journalism background. I think he can do a lot more as far as blogosphere goes: (a)to be a pioneer in journalists circle by motivating other journalists to blog anything they can’t write in their media, a trend Indonesian journalists lagged behind with the rest of the world; (b) to give a good understanding to the editorial boards where he works how important the blog is in the current context and how necessary it’s for them to pay special attention to the content of Indonesian blogs; not only regards it as a technological phenomenon or temporary trend.***