Career
Oetama's journalistic career started when he became an editor of Penabur weekly in 1955. In 1963, he established the Intisari magazine with his business partner and also fellow journalist, P. K. Ojong, which was inspired by Reader's Digest.[9] Two years later, on 28 June 1965, also with Ojong, Oetama established the Kompas daily.[10] Oetama and Ojong based the journalistic team of Kompas from the staff they had recruited for Intisari.[11] He successfully managed Kompas throughout Suharto's authoritarian regime (1965–1998), which repressed the press and media freedom. Especially during the 1970s, when a number of news outlets were censored by the government, Kompas under Oetama approached journalism with caution and reported political issues with a moderating view, and hence largely escaped censorship.[12] One exception was a two-week period in 1978 when Kompas was banned for reporting on student protests,[13] and a conflict erupted between Ojong who would have preferred to close down Kompas to submitting to government demands, and Oetama, who was willing to fall in line with the government.[11]
Oetama became the general manager and the leading figure of Kompas following Ojong's death in 1980.[10][9] Under Oetama's leadership, Kompas grew into a media conglomerate through extensive diversification and reinvestments of profits. By the early 1990s, the group under Kompas consisted of 38 subsidiaries[12] and employed around 10,000 people.[14] Beyond traditional print and publishing businesses the Kompas Gramedia Group under him also expanded into bookstores (i.e. Gramedia), hotels, and some manufacturing.[15] Together with Jusuf Wanandi, Muhammad Chudori, Eric Samola, Fikri Jufri, Goenawan Mohamad, H. G. Rorimpandey and Harmoko; Oetama also established The Jakarta Post, an English language Indonesian newspaper, in 1983.[16]
Between the 1978 censoring and the fall of Suharto in 1998, Kompas did not publish open criticism of the Suharto government, leading Rosihan Anwar to criticize Oetama's cautious stance as "crab journalism".[11] Despite this, however, Kompas remained politically autonomous, and still criticized the government with more subtle allusions.[17] Kompas still maintained good relations with government-controlled media outlets and was willing to sanction their journalists or close certain publications instead of triggering conflict with the government or draw public ire – one example was the shutdown of the Monitor magazine and the expelling of Arswendo Atmowiloto, which was recommended by a committee chaired by Oetama directly.[12][18] Oetama remained editor-in-chief of Kompas until 2000, when he selected Suryopratomo as his replacement.[19]
GlobeAsia estimated the net worth of Oetama and his son Lilik at US$1.65 billion in 2018, making them the 21st richest Indonesians.[20] Oetama was major supporter of the arts, establishing Bentara Budaya under Kompas Gramedia in 1982 which had galleries in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Bali.[21] He is a recipient of the Star of Mahaputera, 3rd class in 1973.[22] Oetama had additionally served as an appointee to the People's Representative Council between 1 February 1967 and 1 October 1977,[23][24] and again in 1997 although he had resigned by 1998.[25] He received an honoris causa in communication from his former alma mater Gajah Mada University on 17 April 2003.[26]
