A slip, or something more sinister, Kompas?

The "strange apology" by a respected newspaper

Ring their bell. Indonesians are very proud of their new-found freedom of the Press. Therefore, Kompas' apology to Najib Razak and family injures that pride, and injures it badly, not least because Kompas is (was?) "the most respected newspaper in the land ... has the highest circulation ... is very conservative and very careful about what it writes, so much so that sometimes its readers have to wade through lots of ho-ing and humming just to get at the meat of a story".


Worse still for the proud Indonesian is the not knowing if it was a screw-up or a cover up on the part of Kompas journalists, or something more sinister involving others.

When I chanced upon YB Khairy's twitter on the Kompas apology, he taunting Anwar Ibrahim's supporters for their silence on the matter, I quickly contacted blogger Unspun, a former colleague at the Star in PJ from another time, to check if it was true. Ong alerted me of his posting yesterday, As always, he sums it up nicely, calling Kompas' apology "a strange apology".

What's really bizarre, though, is the decision by the Kompas' editors to publish the Aug 4 article in the first place.

If this had happened in New Straits Times, heads would have been on the chopping block. But in Indonesia where we believed there was Press freedom, they are all "left wondering how it came about that the most respected publication in the country could have fumbled so badly, apologized so strangely and what sort of checks and balances it exercises to ensure that people are not the victims of misreporting?"

Read the entire Kompas' strange apology to Malaysian PM Najib Razak

The interview with Najib Razak