Researching a Drug Story for Radio

By Simon Nichols
University of Technology Sydney

Simon Nichols is a student on the JPP 2008. His 4-week work placement was at Radio 68H (Utan Kayu) . Hear some of the stories he had on air with radio 68H:

• Indonesia Drug Legislation
• Indonesia Suicide
• Indonesia Urban Farming

I had put an idea to my editor at Utan Kayu Radio about the rising HIV rate in Indonesia. According to my research, this country had the highest infection rate in all of South East Asia and I thought, “What a story!” Of course, I had only been in the country a couple of weeks and little to my knowledge the station had already done numerous features on the topic. My editor however thought the idea of talking to a drug user on the street and getting their view on life might be interesting. I jumped at the chance.

The next day, at about 2pm I was in Tambora, in Western Jakarta. I arrived on the back of a motorbike (ojek) with two local heroin clinic workers, a PHD student and a fellow journalist. It was on the train tracks of Tambora that the reality of this story hit me. Almost immediately, about forty cute neighbourhood children came out to see the crazy bule with his headset and microphone. I was an instant celebrity and the attention made it difficult to grab “normal”, “everyday” atmospheric sounds for my radio feature.

The children were beautiful and it broke my heart to think that Tambora is the district in Jakarta that has the highest rate of HIV infection and the highest percentage of intravenous drug use. It is an exceptionally poor and rough area also and has the highest density of people living together; basically one person per square metre.

We were there to talk to a local user. The kids were cute but without an interview with a heroin pusher or addict, I had no story. I hung with the children for about twenty minutes while the clinic workers went to try and get a known user to speak to me. The workers eventually reported back to me that they were too shy to come out of their shanties on the tracks. This was probably because of the crowd of spectators that had gathered to see the foreign white people in the village. They did not want to be seen talking to the media in full public view.

So it was back on the bikes. We soon came to a suburban bridge closer to Central Jakarta. This bridge is commonly used as a community gathering point. It was also where a local addict makes a nice living selling heroin for his user. He referred to himself as “Al Pacino” and he calmly leaned back and told me his story. He spoke no English so one of the clinic workers translated for me. Even as I jammed the microphone into his face, he seemed very at ease.

Al was 36 and had been using for over ten years. He smoked it for the first time on this very bridge after an all night party at a city nightclub. He said that he did not have HIV but within the local crowd, he pointed out a boy of about 25. “He is now HIV positive,” said Al. “And I sold him his first fix.”

I spoke to Al for about 45 minutes. He was quite a charming person actually. It was easy to forget that he was a pusher. He said that he had been previously clean for over a year but had recently relapsed. His wife was pregnant and they lost the baby and that forced him back into his old bad habits. “I was clean and then my child was still-born and I thought, why is God doing this to me if I was trying to do the right thing and get off drugs? After that I didn’t care anymore about anything.”
Still, I didn’t have a story until I had an authority on the subject. The clinic workers were very generous with their time and told me in great detail how they help people get off drugs and how they are endeavouring to stop the pace of HIV infection in Indonesia through education and needle exchange. But to get a balanced report on the subject, I needed to talk to someone in the government.

This, I had been told is a very arduous process. But hey, I was up for a challenge. Eventually I got the mobile number of somebody in the National Narcotics Bureau. It took me a couple of days to get anybody at all.  Still after much persistence I managed to contact one of the head police officers and explained my situation and he agreed to meet me if I came to the Bureau in Central Jakarta.

I arrived on the designated time and day, only to confront a rather upset secretary who has very bitter that I had made the booking with the chief direct instead of going through the proper channels (ie going through her). She abruptly told me that it was highly unlikely that the chief would have time to talk to me today as he had meetings with various departments. I was welcome to stay and wait. However, I was told a press member from Trans TV had waited for three hours unsuccessfully for an interview yesterday. I think I was getting the hint to leave for the day.

I kept trying to charm her and eventually I was told that the chief would probably be free tomorrow. The secretary said that she would call me at about 9 in the morning if there was an opportunity. I accepted that that was the best outcome I could hope for at the time so I departed.

The next morning I was awoken at about eight fifteen by the secretary calling my mobile. She said that if I came in immediately, I might get my chance. Luckily, I had not returned my recording equipment to the office the night before. I ran out the door and hailed a taxi.

The secretary greeted me entirely differently this time, happy that I had arrived for an appointment that she personally had set up. I waited for about half an hour and then I was ushered into the police chief’s office. He was standing behind his desk, talking into a phone receiver and finishing a kretek cigarette with his free hand. Hanging up his phone, he waved me over to his couch where he waited patiently as I set up the equipment and he gave me a bottle of water.

Overall, the interview went quite well and he was not cautious or apprehensive about any of my questions. He talked a lot about his work with the Australian Federal Police and how he enjoyed working with Australia and he believed that the relationship between his country and mine was very important.

I brought up the drug problem in Indonesia and its connection to the spread of HIV. He told me the amount of money that is spent on drug law enforcement which prompted me to ask, “With so much of the budget going into law enforcement, and the rate of intravenous drug use still escalating every year, do you think the government is losing the war on drugs?”

He replied, “No.” Corruption among police officers is still a problem and he remarked how embarrassing it is for the Bureau. Also, previously the Indonesian Constitution had a zero tolerance policy on drug use but at present there were laws being passed through parliament that hope to gain more protection for users in rehab programs. Instead of the entirety of the national drug budget going towards law enforcement, Indonesia was learning to embrace the positive benefits of prevention and rehabilitation which the chief felt was an important step for conquering this problem.

In all, it was a very satisfying interview to do and I was very excited to get back to the station and splice my story together.

It went to air the following afternoon and although it was only a five minute report, I did feel very proud.

I felt like Kieren Perkins after winning gold at the ‘92 games.

I felt like a white version of Barack Obama.

I felt like an “almost” real journalist.