Citra Dyah Prastuti began her career as a reporter in 2002, covering significant political and social issues, including the Aceh conflict and post-conflict Ambon. 

A Chevening scholar (2005) with over 20 years of experience at KBR Media, she is an award-winning broadcast journalist and media leader, vice-chair of Indonesia’s Association of Digital Publishers (AMSI), and a member of the newly launched WAN-IFRA WIN Guild. 

She shares insights on Gender, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (GEDI) issues, building an ‘artisanal’ platform for podcasters, the rapid uptake of audio as a winning media, and paying it forward.

When asked how news media could rebuild or maintain trust with audiences, Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa emphasised the need to ‘collaborate, collaborate, collaborate” – share your thoughts on this, with respect to KBR’s collaborative initiatives: what impact, if any, of collaborative projects, and what can newsrooms learn from sharing experiences? 

On a practical level, collaboration means shared experiences, shared expertises and shared resources. And on a higher level, collaboration means creating a bigger impact. At KBR, we always seek collaboration with other stakeholders who share similar values with us. 

In 2023, we leveraged KBRPRIME.ID from a podcast-listening platform to a healthy ecosystem of podcasters. We collaborated with 20 mission-driven influencers to produce podcasts with us and push forward strong messages to create a change in society. 

These include collaborations with a prominent human rights activist for a podcast on current issues from human rights perspectives; a female stand-up comedian, a mom-fluencer, a strong campaigner on single mom issues, and a community who support victims of sexual harassment at the workplaces to produce podcasts with strong feminist values and agency spirits. 

We also collaborated with youth communities to bring underreported issues to the public, like animal rights, children literacy, air pollution to females in tech.

We are excited with all the collaborators that we have handpicked and how KBRPRIME has  become an “artisan shop” of quality podcasts produced with journalistic values and ethics. 

This is also a foundation for us to get to know our audience better, as the platform requires people to login. This initiative brought us to winning WAN-IFRA’s 2024 Digital Media Awards as the best innovative digital product for the small/medium media category. 

And WIN Guild: what hopes and future prospects?

After empowering myself with knowledge on Gender, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (GEDI) issues, and having a strong network of women leaders through WIN, I want to pay it forward for my team. 

I think it’s important for the team to feel empowered and at the same time embrace the value of working together in KBR. I was brought up with strong values of KBR and I want to deliver that too for the new generations of my team. WIN Guild allows me to learn more from fellow leaders and I feel like I have somewhere to go to – which I sometimes feel lacking. 

I’m also currently the vice-chairperson of the Association of Digital Publishers in Indonesia (AMSI) – or, as I used to call it, the Indonesian version of WAN IFRA, with 500+ members across Indonesia. 

I want to use my knowledge to push more GEDI issues. 

We have produced a module for media organisations to create their own Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), to prevent and manage GBV cases by creating a safe and inclusive workplace. In 2024, we generated 10 media champions who now have their SOPs, and we want to collaborate with more members across Indonesia to raise more awareness of this issue. 

What are the biggest challenges facing news media in Indonesia today – and what challenges for women journalists, especially?

I think one of the biggest challenges for Indonesian media is the lack of understanding of its audiences. We have been competing for traffic to entertain the algorithm and commercial partners. 

Our current understanding of audiences is mainly numbers or whatever the platform insights provide. It is still a good start, however, we should shift from the B2B approach (business to business) to the B2C approach (business to consumer). 

This is a crucial step to fight back the public trust, in the wave of influencers, content creators, and likewise.  

Generally, it’s not easy for journalists to be out in the open like influencers are. Journalists channel themselves through writing, video, audio, but not bringing their personas to the digital audience. It’s a skill to learn for a journalist – and particularly for women journalists with increasing digital attacks. 

It’s important to level up the game for journalists to be on the digital platforms, and especially important to equip women journalists with better digital security awareness and skills. 

Audio’s power as a communication medium is proven with radio’s success through generations, and the increasing growth of podcasts, particularly at KBR. Share your thoughts on the importance of audio in a young, fast-growing digitally literate environment like Indonesia?

I still remember when we were struggling to bring audio to the digital platform, how to use audio to promote our content, and how to promote audio podcast to the Indonesian audience who love video. 

Audio is still our bread and butter and something that we are very proud of, however, we should also respond to the current trend and demand with video. 

‘We see audio (and video) as the tools, while the main offer is quality journalism and storytelling – how we shape and deliver the messages.’

We need to stay true to our journalism and values as a media to distinguish ourselves from the crowd. 

What skills, tools and resources do you believe are essential for Editors and newsroom leaders today?

It’s the power to listen and connect with people – the audience and the team. We can’t live within our heads, with our perception of what’s going on in the world or how the audience and team wants to be connected with.

We need to talk, get out there and ask questions. It’s important to implement the “user needs perspective” not just to our content, but also to the team. 

With constant change in the media landscape, you need to be eager to learn and keep the passion alive. You need to learn new tools, develop new skills and reach out to new resources to grow yourself. 

What keeps you driven and inspired – despite all the challenges of a constantly changing media landscape?

Media is part of the civil movement to put people in power accountable, and push for a betterment in society. KBR was founded to open access to information and to guard democracy – which are still relevant in the current situation, which is more complex now. 

I want to continue to be a part of the ecosystem to give quality information for people to make important decisions in life. 

As the landscape is constantly changing, I always feel like there’s always something new that we have to try and learn. It’s cozy to just keep doing what we have been doing, and it can be really exhausting to continue pushing ourselves in the competition – but it’s not business as usual for news media.

Sometimes it’s stressful when our experiments and expectations go south, but we just have to pick ourselves up. 

Being resilient and persistent is crucial to stay afloat – or, as Dory from Nemo would say: “Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.”