Chief of News in Rural Indonesia Finds Citizen Journalism Gives Villagers a Voice

By: Patrick Butler | 05/30/2012

Growing up in a village in rural Indonesia, a young boy by the name of Alim dreamed of one day owning his own TV. He never imagined he'd be the head of a broadcast news operation that reports on indigenous issues and serves as a voice for people who have never really had one before.

Today, Alim is chief of news at Ruai TV. His network works in conjunction with Ruai SMS, a mobile news network launched by Knight International Journalism Fellow Harry Surjadi that allows rural citizens to both receive and report local news to the provincial capital.

Columbia Journalism Review recently profiled the project and its results, which it calls an "exciting experiment."

Latest News

A Reporter's Guide to The History of Tariffs

This piece was produced in collaboration with the Global Business Journalism program at Tsinghua University. The program is a partnership between ICFJ, Tsinghua University and Bloomberg News.

For most of human history, governments have taxed goods crossing their borders. Tariffs — taxes levied on imports or exports — have financed

Hans Staiger Award Winner Investigates Russian Soldiers Secretly Treated in Belarus Hospitals, Including Those Linked to War Crimes

Leaked data from the Russian Defense Ministry shook the story loose. A team of investigators found that during the first 21 months of the invasion of Ukraine, nearly 1,000 Russian soldiers were treated at Belarusian hospitals, including war crime suspects. These “secret patients,” as they were known, directly tied Belarus to Moscow’s war effort.

I Blew Up on TikTok with Journalism — Here's How You Can, Too

l'll never forget the day when an editor at the BBC told a 25-year-old me that journalists shouldn’t be on TikTok because “there’s so much misinformation on there.” By that point, I had maybe 10,000 followers on the platform, possibly more, and the comment stung. My TikToks, which had amplified my journalism as well as my passion for learning new languages, were well researched and I hoped the direct opposite of misinformation.