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Instituut voor oorlogs- holocaust-en genocidestudies - http://niod.x-cago.com/maleise_kranten/
Toedjoean peperangan Dai Toa - http://niod.x-cago.com/maleise_kranten/article.do?
Para Menteri dan goebernoer  Negara Repoeblik Indonesia - http://niod.x-cago.com/maleise_kranten/article.do?
AMANAT PRESIDEN KEPADA RAKYAT INDONESIA - http://niod.x-cago.com/maleise_kranten/article.do?
"Djandji November" kedoes - http://niod.x-cago.com/maleise_kranten/article.do? 
Berita Indonesia  -  http://niod.x-cago.com/maleise_kranten/page.do?

Naskah kuno - http://nationalgeographic.co.id/foto/2012/01/naskah-kuno

Pidato Surya Paloh 2012

Reklame Mobil

Suaro Hati - Takkan Berhenti Menulis

 Penilaian Jakob Oetama

Oleh : Marthias Pandoe

Wartawan Senior

Padang Ekspres • Selasa, 10/01/2012

Memberi pernilaian terhadap kiprah saya di Kompas selama 20 tahun, Pemimpin Umum KKG (Kelompok Kompas-Gramedia) Jakob Oetama memulai: Peredaran Kompas di Sumbar cukup luas, meski tibanya di Padang kadang-kadang siang hari tergantung pesawat dari Jakarta.

Secara berolok saya sampaikan kepada Marthias Pandoe, jangan-jangan populernya Kompas di sana terkait popularitas korespondennya. Ia tertawa berderai. ”Ah, bisa saja. Kompas populer di Sumbar, karena PK Ojong, dikenal bersahabat dengan tokoh-tokoh nasional seperti Bung Hatta dan Mohammad Natsir.”

Kenal banyak tokoh salah satu kelebihan Marthias Pandoe sebagai wartawan. Kenal kenal sumber berita, berarti memiliki akses ke sumber informasi. Kemampuan itu termasuk yang diperlukan wartawan dalam melaksanakan pekerjaannya. Dalam kepustakaan tentang jurnalisme hal itu disebut fraternizatio, meski kurang pas bolehlah diindonesiakan sebagai persaudaraan.

Seperti halnya beberapa kelebihan dalam buku-buku pegangan perihal jurnalisme fraternization juga diberi caveat, hati-hati, hubungan akrab dengan penjabat/tokoh atau sumber berita jangan merugikan sosok wartawan yang independen. Rupanya, Marthias Pandoe menyadari hal itu. Jika ada hal yang penting, ia langsung menelepon saya ke Jakarta memberi tahu.

Ini merupakan cara yang efektif bagi wartawan untuk dapat melakukan secara semestinya.Yang saya hargai dari Marthias Pandoe ialah kesadarannya bahwa seorang wartawan apa yang akan ditinggalkannya jika bukan tulisan, pengalaman, kesaksiaan serta pergulatan hidup dalam berbagai tulisan.

Marthias Pandoe di Kompas pakai inisial MDP. Inisial MDP nyaris identik dengan Sumbar, dengan sosiologi budaya Minang, termasuk kedekatan yang disertai sikap kritis dan kecerdasan mengambil jarak dengan sumber-sumber berita. Lagi saya terantuk kata fraternization. Ungkapan itu mereprentasikan Bung Marthias sebagai seorang yang mudah dikenal dan akrab dengan sumber berita.

Tabiat yang disyaratkan seorang wartawan, tapi tetap dengan sikap kritis. Bung Marthias memang gampang akrab dengan siapa pun, termasuk sumber berita. Keakraban bisa menguntungkan dan bisa merugikan. Menguntungkan karena informasi apa pun termasuk yang off the record, yang sifatnya back information disampaikan utuh apa adanya dan lebih lengkap.

Karena kedekatan, sumber berita percaya tanpa memberi peringatan off the record, wartawan yang akrab dan kritis bisa memilih mana yang bisa dan yang tidak bisa dipublikasikan. Sebaliknya, keakraban bisa juga merugikan karena keakraban bisa terjadi vested interest. Wartawan tidak bisa lagi membedakan mana informasi yang bisa jadi berita. Ukuran yang dipakai demi kenyamanan dan keselamatan sumber berita.

Bung Marthias tidak jatuh dalam kemungkinan kedua. Dia bisa akrab dengan siapa pun tapi tetap kritis, tetap menjalankan profesinya sebagai wartawan sejati. Dia pegang teguh prinsip the medium is the message, berita senantiasa punya pesan.

Kepentingan masyarakat adalah pegangan utama dan alasan pertama dimuat tidaknya fakta dan informasi. Prinsip the news that they want to know, juga the news they ough (seharusnya), dia pegang erat. Dia cerdas menerjemahkan informasi dan fakta tanpa merugikan jati diri sebagai wartawan. Intergritas itu pula yang menyertai Bung Marthias sewaktu bekerja di Kompas. .

”Mengesankan dalam hati saya, tulisan Bung Marthias dalam feature tidak terbatas minatnya ke salah satu bidang. Mungkin inklinasinya yang generalis. Bung Marthias menulis dengan hati, komitmen demi kemaslahatan manusia,” kata Jakob Oetama.

Kompas lahir tahun 1965.  Bung Marthias bergabung tahun 1970. Karena rentang waktu di antara keduanya relatif pendek, Bung Marthias di Sumbar ibarat pembawa bendera. Namanya dikenal luas. Lagi-lagi saya terantuk pada ungkapan Jenderal Mac Arthur, pahlawan Amerika Serikat dalam Perang Dunia II: Old soldier never die, they just fade away. Bung Marthias memang telah berhenti sebagai wartawan Kompas, tapi naluri wartawannya senantiasa menggugat dan mencoba menyampaikan kepada publik, tidak kenal lelah, terus menulis. ”Bung Marthias pantas mengenakan mahkota wartawan. Mahkota itu pantas jadi teladan tidak saja bagi anak cucu, tapi juga kebanggaan bagi profesi wartawan,” ujar Jakob.

Rosihan Anwar
Beberapa waktu sebelum wafat tahun 2011, wartawan ternama H Rosihan Anwar sempat mengomentar tentang diri saya: H Marthias Dusky Pandoe seorang ”anak kampung” yang pendidikan formalnya tidak seberapa, namun berhasil berkembang melalui pembelajaran sendiri menjadi wartawan surat kabar besar dan bergengsi, yaitu Kompas.

Seandainya Marthias Pandoe orang Amerika yang bergerak di dunia politik, maka riwayat hidupnya mirip Abraham Lincoln yang pada pertengahan abad ke-19 dari asal-usul rendahan, naik mencapai kedudukan Presiden, menempat Gedung Putih di Washington, suatu perjalanan from the cabin logde to the White House.

Pandoe bukan orang Amerika, bukan politisi, melainkan dari lingkungan petani kampung, namun memperlihatkan social-mobility luar biasa sehingga meraih kedudukan wartawan terhormat, di dataran nasional. Salah satu kegiatan Pandoe di Sumbar, ialah turut aktif dalam pengangkatan penjabat-penjabat pemerintah, seperti gubernur. Wali Kota Padang Syahrul Ujud menggantikan Hasan Basri Durin menjadi perhatiannya. Ketika Hasan Basri Durin jadi gubernur, Pandoe juga instrumental dalam usaha itu.

Kalau kita mengenal pribadi Pandoe lebih baik, kita akan berkesimpulan dia bukan politisi yang terobsesi  kekuasaan. Pandoe bersikap terlalu bersahaja. Pandoe tidak berjiwa manipulatif. Liku-liku otaknya tidak terpasung pada intrik-intrik dan pemainan kekuasaan. Pandoe orang yang basiluruih, lurus tidak macam-macam.

Pandoe suatu ketika berkecimpung dalam dunia politik lokal, namun dia tetap wartawan tulen. Menurut sebuah definisi pakar komunikasi Amerika Lucian Pye: jurtnalist are people who know politic. Jadi Pandoe tahu politik, tapi dia bukan politikus. Pandoe punya persamaan dengan saya. Lahir 10 Mei 1930, sedang saya 10 Mei,  delapan tahun sebelumnya. Sama-sama bintang Taurus. dan  istri kami sama-sama nama Zuraida.

Zaili Asril
Menurut H St Zaili Asril (pemimpin harian Padang Ekspres Group, Marthias Dusky Pandoe bagi dan dalam kehidupan saya sebetulnya juga bagi dunia kewartawanan menempati posisi dan peran yang istimewa.

Secara pribadi, Pak Pandoe mempunyai posisi dan peranan sebagai ”orangtua rohaniah” dan sebagai guru. Saya memandang Pak Pandoe orangtua yang membina saya jadi wartawan, memulai karir kewartawanan di harian pagi Kompas Jakarta, di bawah didikan beliau.

Nah, karena tempaan dan bimbingan beliaulah saya menjadi wartawan. Saya berutang budi yang mungkin tidak terbayarkan kepada beliau. Saya pernah berniat membayarnya dengan membuat biografi beliau. Tapi saya tidak cukup pandai mengatur waktu.

Kuat keinginan saya untuk menulis biografi Marthias Pandoe, karena dalam pandangan saya beliau adalah dokumentasi hidup sejarah dan perkembangan pers daerah—juga nasional—ada dalam memori wartawan tiga zaman ini. Saya sering dihinggapi kekhawatiran kalau semua itu dibawa pergi dan hilang bilamana beliau dipanggil Yang Maha Kuasa ke haribaan-Nya. Pak Pandoe menulis dengan jujur, sederhana, bersahaja, menggunakan kalimat pendek sehingga mudah dimengerti.

Entahlah akan terasa lancang bila saya mengatasnamakan diri sebagai mewakili masyarakat Sumatera Barat menyampaikan terima kasih kepada Pak Pandoe, ibarat sebuah award yang memang sepantasnya diberikan kepada beliau.

Julius Pournomo
Rekan sekantor saya di Kompas, wartawan senior Julius Pournomo (JUP), pertama dalam penilaiannya mengutip juga ucapan Jenderal Mac Artur old soldier never die, they just fade away. Kalimat bersayap ini sangat dikenal diucapkan Mac Arthur. Prajurit tua tidak pernah meninggal. Dia hanya bakal surut ke belakang.

Sebagai seorang jenderal bintang satu, Mac Arthur telah memimpin pasukannya bertempur di daratan Eropa dalam Perang Dunia I. Kemudian sebagai jenderal bintang empat berlaga di kawasan Lautan Pasifik selama Perang Dunia II. Dan selaku jenderal bintang lima, memimpin langsung pasukan antar bangsa (Perserikatan Bangsa-Bangsa) dalam perang Korea. Padanan semacam ini selalu saya kemukakan setiap bertemu dengannya, yang akrab saya sapa Datuk dan dikenal inisialnya di Kompas sebagai MDP.

Satu sisi membuktikan mengenai keteladanan Datuk yang tanggal 10 Mei 2010 mencapai usia 80 tahun, menulis buku bertajuk Jernih Melihat, Cermat Mencatat. Sebuah buku keteladanan sikap profesional dari seorang wartawan mengenai makna sangat dalam untuk mengisi kalimat bersayap sesuai pernyataan Mac Artur.

Sebelumnya dia telah menulis buku A Nan Takana, memoar seorang wartawan. Kedua buku diterbitkan Kompas. Datuk sampai sekarang selalu membuka mata untuk bisa mengamati segala macam persoalan dan menggerakkan jari tangan mencatat sekaligus menuangkan dalam tulisan. ”Marthias Pandoe tidak hanya sekadar nama dari seorang wartawan, melainkan pribadi keteladanan yang mengabdi tanpa pamrih,” demikian penilaian JUP.(*)

[ Red/Redaksi_ILS ]

Suaro hati - How to Make your Readers Sit Up and Take Notice

                            

By Mary Jaksch, Chief Editor of Write to Done

Let’s say you want to write about a dry subject like how to use backlinking for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
How can you make readers sit up, take notice – and entertain them at the same time?
Here’s a challenge for you …
Imagine writing an intro which weaves together the following topics: ancient civilizations, India, the jungle, mysterious temples, tigers, dark passages, snakes hanging from the ceiling, forgotten gods, altar carvings that reveal hidden secrets – and SEO.
It’s impossible, right?
Andy Fletcher managed to do just that in the intro to his report Backlink Leverage.
Here’s how he crafted his intro:

You’ve probably read the sales letters that have some … interesting stories to tell.
How the guy writing was on a holiday in India, how they were exploring the jungle, and how they came across this mysterious temple…
It was overgrown with vines. There was a tiger lounging by the door, they had to sneak past.

They crept through dark passages, wondering if every brush along their back was just a vine hanging from the ceiling or a poisonous snake.

And then they found it. The altar of some ancient, long-for gotten god. And carved into that altar they found a secret. The secret that has allowed them to exploit Google and made them rich …

Well, ain’t that just remarkable. A lost civilization that thousands up on thousands of archeologists have yet to discover, despite it being in a far more obvious state than all the other ones that are, y’know, buried…
And not only that, but this civilization was coming up with hot SEO techniques before there was an SE to O.
I’m sure impressed.
Or I would be, if it wasn’t so utterly ridiculous

I was thoroughly entertained by this introduction and it made me read more. What’s your reaction?

Have you written a creative intro that keeps readers glued to the page? If so, please share it in the comments.

Mary Jaksch is Chief Editor of Write to Done and co-creator of the A-List Blogging Bootcamps and the A-List Blogger Club. Enjoy more of Mary’s writing at Goodlife ZEN and in our free WDT book, The (nearly) Ultimate Guide to Better Writing! Just enter your name and email in the form at the top of the sidebar for immediate download.

                  

Suaro hati - The Golden Rule of Writing

                           

A guest post by Eric Cummings of On Violence

                    

I learned what I consider the “Golden Rule of Writing” – the only rule that can help every writer – in the first creative writing class I ever took. Of course, I didn’t learn the rule immediately, or even in the first class. My classmates and I first had to learn how different we were from one another as writers.

Our teacher, an old bald Caribbean man with missing front teeth and a stoop, began by asking the class, “How do you write?”

Some students wrote on computers, others in journals; I wrote long hand on legal pads. Some wrote in the morning at their home, others at night with friends; I wrote by myself at the library in the afternoon. Our professor wrote memoir fiction about his sexual escapades in the Caribbean standing at a lectern a la Hemingway. We wrote literary fiction, memoirs, and detective stories; newspaper articles, editorials, and e-mails. We were men and women, young and old, lazy and prolific, borderline illiterate and consummate professionals. Some of us needed two drafts, others needed dozens. We were a microcosm of the rest of the writing universe: no two writers write the same way.

The problem with learning the “rules” for writing is that none of them apply to everyone.

How can any rule possibly apply to everyone? I co-write my blog with my twin brother, and we don’t write the same way. What rule can cover journalism and blogging, poetry and prose; authors like James Joyce, who struggled to write seven words a day, or Nora Roberts, who writes multiple books a year? If a golden rule exists, it needs to unite all writers.

I learned the Golden Rule of Writing on my second day in class, as my story about a farmer and a mule was read aloud. I had spent some time writing it, one day rewriting it, and another afternoon editing it. I was nervous but confident. It was a good story.

The story began, “Light barely flooded into the room.”

“Wait.” Less than a sentence in, the Professor stopped the student reading my story. He turned to me, “Eric, what do you mean, ‘Light barely flooded into the room.’?”

“Well, it is sunrise, and the sun is coming up.” I said.

“But how can light ‘barely flood’ in? Do you mean the word flood?”

Light could either barely trickle in, or flood in, but it couldn’t do both. The lesson wasn’t that I needed to be clearer and more precise with my language–though I did–it was that I didn’t know what my words meant. I didn’t own the words on the page. The questions the professor asked us over the course of the quarter were always the same, “What do you mean?” “What did you intend here?” or “Why did you use this word?”

What is my Golden Rule of Writing? It’s this:

Intend every word you write.

Be aware of what your words mean, and make sure that the meaning aligns with what you are trying to say. Writing is communication; don’t we all want to communicate as accurately as possible?

(I hear the guy in the back saying, what if I want my writing to be confusing? Then be confusing, but do it intentionally.)

Notice how my professor coached me on my writing. He didn’t tell me what words to use, he didn’t tell me my mistake. He asked questions. Perhaps I meant to put the words together, as a poetic statement. Or perhaps the idea or the image I meant to convey wasn’t being conveyed. He made me aware of what my words meant. The lesson was clear: these were my words, dammit, and I needed to own them.

As my above example shows, the Golden Rule of Writing is not an easy one, especially when you write for readers. Your intention needs to jibe with what you want them take away from you work. (Perhaps you write only in your journal. You follow the Golden Rule every time you write, because you express what you mean every time you write, because you are writing for yourself.)

Below, I have seven tips for implementing intentionality behind your writing, to better convey what you want to say.

1. When you revise your work ask yourself, “Does this convey what I want to convey?” Ask yourself this question after every line, especially when writing fiction.

2. Think about your reader. Who is your intended audience? If you’re writing your church newsletter, then you probably aren’t going to want to include any swear words. Think about your reader, and write to them, being aware of how they will react to your words.

3. Think about the meaning of every word you write. James Joyce spent whole days writing just a handful of words, spending hours thinking about them and their meaning. Now, I hear you saying, “Whoa, I don’t have that much time.” True. But you can ask yourself, “Do I really know what this word means?” “Am I using it correctly?” “Will my intended audience get what I am trying to say?” Spend more time on longer sentences and bigger words.

4. Look out for especially “arty writing” The best writing is unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. But I’m not F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce or Cormac McCarthy, and neither are you. So when you write something especially clever, unique or “arty,” double check it to make sure it makes sense. I learned this rule from personal experience.

5. Use a dictionary. Check it to see if that word means what you think it means.

6. Listen to podcasts about grammar, and read books and blogs about it. Did you know that non-plussed means confused, or bewildered? Do you know what a gerund is? Neither did I, until I started educating myself. I recommend the podcasts Grammar Grater and Grammar Girl, the books Writing With Style By Trimble and The Writer’s Reference. If you are revising your work and something strikes you as strange, look it up. It will add to your overall knowledge of grammar, usage and the written word.

7. Read. This is the single best way to add to your vocabulary and your knowledge of language and writing.

Ultimately, the Golden Rule of Writing is not about conformity, but freedom. Do you dislike semi-colons? Don’t use them. Do you want to start sentences with “and,” “but,” or “because?” Then go ahead, it’s your writing. If you want to use a word incorrectly, go ahead. But use it incorrectly on purpose, knowing the implications of that misuse.

With the Golden Rule of Writing, you are free to convey whatever idea, thought or image you want. You are free to tell whatever story, write whatever essay, or compose any poem you want. But write it with intention.

Eric Cummings writes for On Violence, a blog on counter-insurgency warfare, military and foreign affairs, art, and violence, written by two brothers–one a soldier and the other a pacifist.

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Suaro hati - How to Show (Not Tell): A Writing Lesson from John LeCarre

By Mary Jaksch

I’m sure you agree that whether you write fiction or faction, stories are a great way to convey your message.

Even in fact-focused blog posts, a good story can engage and inspire readers.

As all storytellers know, a good story conveys mood, touches emotions, and holds the reader captive. A skillful storyteller sets the scene by showing – not telling. As a writer, you need to reach for one of your most important writing tools: description.

Show (not tell) – how to do it?

You can find the slogan ‘show – not tell’ in every writing book. But how do you do it? How to make a story come to life?

A few days ago, I chose Smiley’s People by John LeCarré as my bed-time book.

It was a mistake.

Just as the story slid from harmless to menacing in the space of a couple of pages, the lights went out.

I fumbled for a torch, but couldn’t find it. The growling wind, the sheets of lightning – everything seemed to spell danger. I couldn’t sleep.

How did LeCarré do it?

How did he weave his story so well that its mood colored my experience? Well, LeCarré knows how to show. His descriptions get under the skin.

People: how to describe what lies beneath the skin

Describing people can be tricky because it’s easy to slip into clichés.

So often we read stuff like this: “She was tall. Her dark hair …”
Jabber, jabber, jabber. Such descriptions don’t show what’s beneath the skin.

In contrast, here are some examples from Smiley’s People:

Barley looked at Clive, who had one of those English faces that seemed to have been embalmed while he was still a boy king, at his hard clever eyes with nothing behind them, at the ash beneath his skin.

And here’s how LeCarré introduces a new character:

There was a knock at the door and Wintle came in, an eternal student of fifty-seven. He was tall but crooked, with a curly grey head that shot off at an angle, and an air of brilliance almost extinguished… He sat with his knees together and held his sherry glass away from him like a chemical retort he wasn’t sure of.

You can see and feel Wintle, can’t you? One of the interesting things here – apart from the brilliant characterization – is that we get a sense not only of the character, but also of the observer’s experience.

But what about mood? That’s when landscape becomes a major player.

How to use landscape to create mood

LeCarré is a maestro of menace. Here is how he describes the landscape of an interrogation facility:

The gates opened electronically and beyond them lay mounds of clipped grass like mass graves grown over.  Olive downs stretched towards the sunset. A mushroom-shaped cloud would have looked entirely natural.

Bleak. As a reader you know right away that there are no happy voices here.

A description gives the reader a moment to reflect, to feel, to intuit. It’s like a pause in the forward momentum of a piece.

What you need to know about pace

A description slows down the pace. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

As the great Sol Stein says in Stein on Writing:

The best of good books have purposeful slowdowns in pace from time to time because the author knows that readers, like athletes, must catch their breath.

But you need to crank the pace up again. Here is how LeCarre changes the pace  in a dialogue between Barley and Ned. In the story, Barley has just heard a strange message on the phone.

‘It isn’t a joke, I’m afraid,’ Ned said. ‘It’s actually very serious.’
Lost once more in his own contemplations, Barley slowly replaced the receiver. ‘The line between actually very serious and actually very funny is actually very thin,’ he remarked.
‘Well, let’s cross it, shall we?’ said Ned.

Notice how the long sentence with its hypnotic repetitions slows the pace, and the crisp remark that follows picks it up again.

How descriptions solve the talking heads problem

If you describe a conversation, you are in danger of the ‘talking heads’ syndrome.  This means that the reader only gets a floating interchange of ideas – without the grounded context of flesh, bones, feelings, and ambience.

This is where a good description can save the day. As you can see in the examples by LeCarré, descriptions can set the scene, convey the inexpressible, and turn the reader into a witness, instead of remaining a mere bystander.

Please share  interesting descriptions (good or bad) in the comments. You may want to add your thoughts on why a particular description works – or why it doesn’t.

Mary Jaksch is Chief Editor of Write to Done and co-creator of the A-List Blogging Bootcamps and the A-List Blogger Club. Enjoy more of Mary’s writing at Goodlife ZENand in our free WDT book, The (nearly) Ultimate Guide to Better Writing!Just enter your name and email in the form at the top of the sidebar for immediate download.