Press Releases

Internews Media Assessment: West Sumatra Earthquake

Classy FM in Padang

MB Wijaksana (Uung) and Rudy Silalahi of Internews first visited Classy FM in Padang. This radio station is a production partner with Internews, producing features for Internews’ national bi-weekly radio program Suara Negeriku (Voice of my Nation). None of the staff were injured in the quake and the station did not sustain damage, but the station had to switch to a power generator when the power went off.

Classy FM went straight to work collecting news about the earthquake to share with their listeners. Padang is often hit with tremors and is considered to be a high risk for tsunamis – so much so that Padang has one of Indonesia’s three early warning buoys provided by the Indian Ocean Tsunami Early Warning Center. Classy’s first job was to confirm that there would not be a tsunami, as they knew that this would be the immediate fear of most Padang residents and could cause mass panic.

The Classy FM team worked hard to get accurate information from reliable sources such as the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) in Padang, the government’s Disaster Relief Coordinator (Satkorlak), the Ministry of Transportation Office, and the police. Once assured that the earthquake was land-centered and that a tsunami was not a danger, Classy broadcast this information virtually non-stop for the first several hours post-disaster.

Classy FM sent reporters to the hardest hit areas: Solok, Padang Panjang, Tanah Datar and Bukittinggi and for the first three days the reporters fed live reports directly from the affected areas, including interviews with victims, descriptions of the damage, and relief efforts. According to Station Manager Medy Rosana and News Coordinator Robby, the station received an incredibly high number of calls from their listeners.

While Classy devoted their broadcast schedule to the disaster, they were discouraged by the muted response of their media competitors in Padang. They also contend that there is little coordination among government agencies and that these departments presented conflicting reports of the effects of the earthquake. Information was spread person-to-person, but that is how rumours begin, the Classy managers warned, making the journalist’s job much more difficult.

Solok

The Internews team continued on to Solok, where 14 were killed and 35 injured, and met with the regional representatives of the national association of community radio stations, called the Jaringan Radio Komunitas Indonesia (JRKI). This group is working with a local NGO and with commercial station Fanessa FM to establish two new community radios near Singkarak Lake in the border area between two districts, Solok and Tanah Datar that were both severely hurt by the earthquake.

At the newly established community station in Paninggahan, Uung conducted an impromptu training course for the radio personnel, who are mostly young announcers with almost no experience in journalism. Uung worked with them on methods for managing community radio, ideas for creating emergency programming, and the basic principles of news and talk radio.

Padang Panjang

In Padang Panjang, where 10 people died in the earthquake, the team visited Bahana FM.
The Bahana FM building was badly damaged in the quake; some walls collapsed, including one wall that damaged the transmission tower. Bahana lost two computers and their fax machine. One of the broken computers was their data bank, which included their virtual music library. None of the staff were injured.

Despite these setbacks, Bahana returned to the air on March 9. Bahana opened a hotline for listeners to tell their stories about the earthquake, and supplemented that programming with field reports. Bahana also invited listeners to send messages to family and relatives in their coverage area, letting them know that they were all right.

Continuing their journey from south to north, the team arrived in the city of Bukittinggi, where 9 people died and 100 were injured. The public broadcaster there, Radio Republik Indonesia, was badly damaged by the earthquake and is now broadcasting from an outdoor broadcast vehicle. The station is broadcasting earthquake-related reports on internally displaced persons (IDP) camp locations, relief activities, and aid distribution locations, while advising listeners on the possibility of subsequent tremors. They interview public officials and prominent local figures with the conscious aim of keeping citizens calm and countering unconfirmed rumors.

Recommendations for Emergency Media response

West Sumatra is considered to be one of the highest-risk earthquake and tsunami regions in Indonesia. Any media response to the latest disaster should also help these communities cope and prepare for future tremors or a tsunami. Local media are ideally positioned to convey messages from authorities and also to broadcast the views of the citizens. In many places, radio is the only form of local media; Solok and Padang Panjang have no local print media.

Internews proposes utilizing its established working relationship with Classy FM to have this station form the flagship of an emergency response network of stations. As a respected news voice in the community of Padang, Classy already has a great deal of expertise in responding to emergencies, and Internews would like to enable this station to play a mentoring role with the smaller less experienced stations.

Internews will make connections between the local media and the national and international relief community, to ensure that urgent messages about the distribution of food, clothing, blankets, medical aid, rubberized mats, tarpaulins, and the construction of low cost transitional homes.

In another disaster mitigation measure, Internews proposes working with the Indian Ocean Tsunami Early Warning Center to develop an emergency broadcasting system that will instantly alert the broadcast media in the event of a tsunami warning.