Celebrating Jakob Oetama's Legacy: Kompas.com's 25th Anniversary

First, during its early days, Kompas.com published the news from Kompas newspaper. They shared a newsroom, employees, and the entire news content. From the reader’s side, there were no demands as the growth of online media was still nascent. The first period took place from 1995 to 1998.

Second, in 1998 kompas.com was spun off from the printed edition and produced its own stories, which were different from Kompas. It had its own newsroom, its employees recruited separately although some straddled between digital and print. Readership started to grow and led to the creation of a new business model. In this second period, the brand was known as KCM, which stood for Kompas Cyber Media.

Third, the rebirth period in 2008. The brand evolved from KCM to kompas.com. This online media is rebranded to directly reflect its mother entity. Pak Jakob himself requested that the name of the online version of Kompas should not be different.

It was Pak Jakob's dream to establish the company's multimedia reach to keep readers abreast of new developments. He wanted readers to identity the Kompas spirit across platforms: print, digital, and television.

He also hoped that Kompas could reach wider audiences. 

These ideals were fully realized when Kompas TV finally went live for the first time on September 9, 2011. The mission to go multimedia has been completed.

In this third period, Kompas.com adopted all the characteristics of the digital media which make journalism more complete.

The newsroom is independent. The content is created with a different approach from the newspapers because online readership has different characteristics. The content model is in line with a viable business model.

We believe this is not the end of change. As Jakob Oetama has said, change is the identity of the media, so we are prepared for the changes throughout the times.

Seeing hope

What do we hold on to? Hope. We should have the ability to see hope and hold on to it. Therefore, “Seeing Hope” is the theme of the silver jubilee of Kompas.com for the year ahead.

To see and hold on to hope is an expression of our gratitude for today, that stops us from clinging on to the past, and moving firmly into the future.

May you overflow with hope,

Wisnu Nugroho

(Editor : Heru Margianto)

Source: https://www.kompas.com/tren/read/2020/09/14/092259965/25-tahun-kompascom-dan-cita-cita-jakob-oetama?page=all.