By Nur Aina Islami
Today, media is one of the biggest platforms in the world as it is regarded as the focus for most people in life. To become a journalist, a person is taught to gather information in the form of text, audio or photos, then process and construct the news and communicate to the public.
Aina considers journalism a privileged career because a journalist is also an educator, a defender of democracy, and a disseminator of knowledge in society. Journalists operate across bureaucracies, specialties, and different levels of society.
To put it succinctly, if Nur Aina were to become a journalist she wants to be seen as a citizen of honour. Moreover, this is part of her motivation story she shared which actually came from the closest and most beloved person in her life – her special journalist who is also her dad.
As a communication student of International Islamic University of Malaysia specialising in journalism, she takes pride and considers herself very lucky to have someone who can be of great inspiration to push her desire to become a successful journalist in the future. Hence, the journey of how her dad became a journalist has given her the inspiration in the process of achieving her own dream and career.
Her father, Drs. Nur Hidayat, had gone into journalism since he was a student of Gadjah Mada University (UGM), Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She understood that her father started to be interested in journalism because of his love for writing. During his junior high school, Nur Hidayat emerged as the winner of a writing contest and he registered for the high school by using the prize that he received. Besides that, he had been active in magazine community called ‘MADING’ or “Majalah Dinding”.
It was during the 1980’s that Nur Hidayat started the big step for the next journey as a journalist. It was a hard time for him due to rejections he received earlier after he tried to apply joining the media. However, with his tireless efforts he managed to get accepted into one of prominent media companies in Yogyakarta.
As a journalist, Nur Hidayat was involved at least in three periods of social and political changes in Indonesia – the Soeharto’s New Order regimes (1968-1998), the Reformation era (1998-2000), and post-reform era when the Indonesians were seeking out for the new pattern of social, politics and culture.
More over, those social and political upheavals have had significant impacts on how they shaped the pattern of journalistic movements in Indonesia. This in turn had contributed to the absorption of the moral principles and ethical practices as a journalist for Nur Hidayat.
Furthermore, Nur Hidayat was active with at least four different media outlets such as The Balairung Magazine (1988-1993), Bernas Newspaper (1993-1994), and Gatra newsweekly Magazine (1994-2005). Lastly, it shows how her dad’s journey had taught Aina that there are always opportunities out there to reach out to her dream while building the better quality of her own.
Nevertheless, her dad is the first person in Aina’s life who showed her how a great journalist had positioned himself. The first thing she learned from her father is to always remember about ethics, such as honesty, meaning that the news reported must always be accurate. His advice is for journalists to cover both sides or be balanced in reporting to raise the confidence of the readers especially from people on the ground.
All in all, Aina admitted that she has learned a lot from her father on the values of being a good journalist. She hoped to improve her journalism skills through constant reading and exploring every aspect of the knowledge components through building networking, communication and hard work. ***
(This article is written as part of individual assignment series for Feature Writing class)