CHAPTER 14 – Cleaning Service Provided by CNN
Undeniably, scores of journalists toiled and sweated to help the victims. Reporters from all corners of the globe contributed to the efforts in building an international solidarity through their instant, continuous and in-depth reporting.
Compared with coverage of the tsunami in other countries, news from Indonesia was relatively late in coming. Only hours after the tsunami, international television networks had already aired news and video recordings of the situations in Thailand and Sri Lanka. On the second day of the tsunami, when Indian photographer Arko Datta captured an Indian woman howling over a victim’s dead body with his camera—a picture that later won the World Press Photo 2004 Award—people in Indonesia, let alone the international community, still had no idea about what had happened in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam province and on Nias Island. Everyone was still in the dark about conditions in Aceh and Nias. No one had a clear idea on the magnitude of the damage inflicted by the disaster and the sheer number of victims. Even the government, during the first few days of the disaster, mentioned “only” around 1,000 victims, only to later slowly raise the number in stages to around 3,000.
Getting to the disaster-hit areas was no small task. Journalists had to fight for plane seats to reach Banda Aceh. “This is the most difficult location to reach during my entire career as a journalist,” said Eric Grigorian, whose work on a mass burial in quake-stricken Gavince Province of Iran titled By His Father’s Grave won the World Press Photo 2003 Award.
Wartawan Tempo sejak 1998. Menjelajah berbagai desk, antara lain ekonomi, nasional, kesehatan, sains, gaya hidup, dan investigasi. Sejak Januari 2009 ditugasi menjadi Direktur Eksekutif Institut Tempo, sebuah lembaga yang dicita-citakan menjadi pusat pengembangan jurnalistik di Indonesia. Lulusan Fakultas Biologi, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, tahun 1996. Setelah lulus kuliah, bergabung dengan Majalah Warta Ekonomi (1996) sebagai staf riset dan kemudian menjadi reporter di majalah Panji Masyarakat (1997).