About Gatra

Gatra

Gatra was a weekly news magazine published in Jakarta, Indonesia, from 1994 to 2024. Published in Indonesian by Era Media Informasi, it appeared weekly on Thursdays and covered news and politics. Alongside Tempo, it was one of the two principal news magazines in the country. Its motto was Baca Gatra Baru Bicara, meaning Read Gatra, Then Talk. Gatra was born directly out of one of the most consequential press closures in modern Indonesian history — the 1994 banning of Tempo — and it carried a large part of Tempo's newsroom into a new publication that survived for thirty years, through the fall of the New Order, the democratic reform era, and the digital disruption of Indonesian print media, before it folded in July 2024.

Founding after the Tempo ban

Gatra was founded in 1994, following the Suharto administration's ban on Tempo magazine, and it was primarily founded by former Tempo staff. On 21 June 1994 the government of President Suharto, through Information Minister Harmoko, revoked Tempo's publication licence along with those of two other weekly magazines. A group of former employees of the defunct Tempo then sought a new publishing licence for a successor weekly. Their publishing company, PT Era Media Informasi, received its licence, dated 13 October and signed by the Ministry of Information's Director General of Press and Graphics, Soebrata, and presented to the company's president director, Budiono Kartohadiprodjo. Gatra was founded by former Tempo employees who accepted timber tycoon Muhammad Bob Hasan as its major investor; Bob Hasan is listed as the magazine's founder, with Era Media Informasi as its publisher. Those Tempo journalists who refused to join the new venture instead tried to start their own weekly under other names. A trial edition of Gatra, with a cover story on former President Sukarno, was distributed free to a selected readership in an initial run reported at 15,000 to 20,000 copies ahead of the commercial launch.

Debut in November 1994

The first issue of Gatra was dated 19 November 1994, and the magazine made its public debut in mid-November 1994. For the first edition, PT Era Media Informasi published around 135,000 copies, distributed all over the country. The debut issue led with coverage of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting as its main story, alongside a poll of young people's perceptions of the late President Sukarno and a report on the controversial visit of Gus Dur, head of an influential Muslim organisation, to Israel, as well as a story about Saudi Arabian royal jewels embezzled by Thai police. The magazine employed over 170 former Tempo staff, of whom about 30 were journalists. Its general manager was Lukman Setiawan, who was also deputy general manager of the Bisnis Indonesia daily, and its chief editor was Herry Komar. Reporters who joined from Tempo included Linda Djalil, Zakaria M. Passe and Ed Zoelverdi. The new magazine's cover design bore a strong resemblance to Tempo's, a resemblance its editors addressed directly: Herry Komar said that Gatra was Gatra, and that any resemblance to Tempo was simply because Tempo had in fact been their school of journalism. Its first offices were in Wisma Kosgoro on Jalan Thamrin in Jakarta.

A weekly school of Tempo journalism

From its debut, Gatra presented itself as a continuation of the Tempo tradition by other means. A Gatra executive said at the launch that the magazine's columns and stories would not be too different from Tempo's because the defunct weekly had been the campus for most of Gatra's journalists. That lineage shaped the magazine's content throughout its life: articles on national news and politics, reported and written in the in-depth weekly format that its staff had learned at Tempo. Headquarters remained in Jakarta, and the magazine was published in Indonesian for a national audience. Contemporary reference works on Indonesian media consistently paired the two titles, describing Tempo and Gatra as the principal weekly news magazines of the country, and noting that both maintained online editions as the market moved digital. Gatra's motto, Baca Gatra Baru Bicara — read Gatra before you speak — expressed the same claim Tempo made in its own motto: that a weekly magazine, read before joining public debate, could make that debate better informed.

Editors and leadership over three decades

Gatra's editorial leadership changed eight times across its thirty years, providing a record of continuity through Indonesia's political transitions. Herry Komar, the founding chief editor, served from 1994 to 1998, spanning the last years of the New Order and the fall of Suharto. He was followed briefly by Widi Yarmanto in 1998, and then by Bernardus Rahmanto from 1998 to 2002. Iwan Qodar Himawan led the magazine from 2002 to 2006, and Budiono Kartohadiprodjo, who had received the original publishing licence on the company's behalf in 1994, served as editor-in-chief from 2006 to 2012. Heddy Lugito followed from 2012 to 2016, Carry Nadeak from 2016 to 2019, and Mukhlison S. Widodo, listed as Mukhlison Sri Widodo in the magazine's masthead information, from 2019 until the magazine's closure in 2024. The magazine was published by PT Era Media Informasi throughout, and it carried ISSN 0853-1706.

Coverage and position in the market

Gatra covered news and politics as its defined categories, publishing reported articles on current affairs on a weekly basis. Accounts of the Indonesian media landscape described it as offering comprehensive coverage of current events and issues, including politics, economy, culture and technology, with detailed investigations and context on complex subjects. For readers, the existence of two Jakarta weekly news magazines with a shared origin created a distinctive market: Tempo, revived in 1998 after the ban ended, and Gatra, the publication created by Tempo journalists who had chosen to keep publishing inside the licensing system during the ban years. Both served the same broad readership of Indonesians who wanted weekly analysis rather than daily headlines alone. Gatra also developed an online presence through gatra.com, offering news and analysis beyond the print weekly as reading habits changed, and it organised public events and discussions around current issues as part of its wider activity as a news brand.

The long decline of print

Like other Indonesian print magazines, Gatra faced a long contraction as advertising and readership moved online. By 2024 its recorded circulation had fallen to 3,000, a stark contrast with the roughly 135,000 copies printed for its first edition in 1994. The magazine nonetheless continued weekly publication into its thirtieth year, outlasting many titles founded in the freer publishing climate after 1998. Its survival rested on the same asset it had been founded with: an experienced newsroom working in the weekly news magazine format. But the economics of print distribution and production, weakened further during the COVID-19 pandemic years, steadily narrowed the space in which a small-circulation weekly could operate, even one with a recognised name and a loyal core of readers built up over three decades.

Closure in July 2024

Gatra folded in July 2024 after thirty years of publication, due to the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The closure was announced in July 2024, with reports in Kompas and Tempo recording that the magazine would cease publication from 31 July 2024. Its final issue was dated 25 July 2024, carrying a valedictory theme rendered in its pages as dying in order to be born again. The end of Gatra closed a chapter that had opened in the newsroom diaspora of 1994: the journalists who had been scattered by the banning of Tempo had, through Gatra, kept a second weekly news magazine alive for a full generation, from the last years of Suharto through democratisation and into the digital era. With its closure, Tempo remained as the surviving title of the pair that reference works had long described together as Indonesia's two principal news magazines.

Legacy

Gatra's legacy is inseparable from the events of 1994. It demonstrated that a banned magazine's newsroom could re-form, obtain a licence, print 135,000 copies of a first edition and build a durable national publication, even inside a restrictive licensing regime. At the same time, its founding divided the former Tempo community, between those who joined Gatra under its new investor and those who pursued independent journalism through new organisations and underground publishing during the ban. Judged across its whole run from 19 November 1994 to 25 July 2024, Gatra was a substantial Indonesian news institution in its own right: a Jakarta-based, Indonesian-language weekly, published by Era Media Informasi, edited by eight successive editors-in-chief, and read for its coverage of politics and current affairs for thirty years. Its archive records how Indonesia's weekly news magazine tradition adapted, survived and finally contracted as the country's media system transformed around it.