By Sudjarwo
Professor of Social Studies at FKIP Unila
HYPOTHESES on the impact of Covid-19 in all elements of life are indisputable so far, including the life of journalism. This lash out makes the media must cudgel its brains to survive, including Lampung Post.
As the oldest daily newspaper in Lampung, Lampost must deal with the heavy blow of Coronavirus. The leader is required to have a surefire strategy, so the Wadyabala will not get laid off. Meanwhile, the number of readers has dramatically decreased because they cannot access the media as it used to be.
Idealism must still maintain as a code of ethics of journalism, while economic considerations must put in the forward. All media are facing this difficult choice. Therefore, readers are expected to understand if the number of pages and the quality of the paper reduced.
Sometimes, the media must give thought to release the news. If the impact affects society’s life, the editorial must concern with other considerations. However, it must be recognized that only those who are creative and innovative will survive on this situation. Slowly but sure, Lampost seems to overcome this big problem.
In this article, the author wants to highlight that summarizing opinion is not an easy job. The task becomes a burden because summarizing is not the same as cutting the manuscript. Shorten the text still upholds the spirit that the author wants to convey. Only by choosing proper diction becomes the main concern, while cutting the script does not need to consider the spirit of the writing.
For a writer, summarizing ideas is a difficult thing to do because not everyone can choose the diction, then present in short sentences. The problem also found in postgraduate students both Masters and Doctoral Programs, many of them have difficulty in writing abstracts of research results
Summarizing scientific information to be solid is not easy. The same thing also happens for writers who have freedom of thought, even tend to be wild. The writers must choose proper words to represent several things in the shortest possible time, without losing its essence.
The opinion column on Lampung Post seemingly creates new challenges for the contributors who have been demanded to elaborate thoughts with only a few words. Contributors during Covid-19 have required to parse their thoughts into brilliant writings concisely, precisely, and meets the target. The executioners will cut and edit the texts If it doesn’t follow the requirements.
As the interesting novel, Sengsara Membawa Nikmat, written by Tulis St. Sati and published by Balai Pustaka in 1929, described that not all miseries end with bitterness. Likewise, summarizing opinion will teach the writers how to rack their brains in choosing proper and meaningful words.
The problem now is what steps writers should take to enter the arena of writing a mini opinion. First, understand the issues that will be central to the study, especially the presence or absence of journalism values. The problem could come from you or some of you
Second, choose words that will be used as a sentence. Try to have a single meaning, so that the reader does not misinterpret. Third, an opinion should be finished with just one or two sentences, so it is more concise than the conclusion.
From these three things, it seems that we are required to be smart in channeling our cognitive, affective, and conative thinking into writing. These three standards of role models must be used by writers in this corona era.
There is always wisdom behind incidents when we observe it clearly without negative emotions. Corona that attacks the existence of this column opinion makes the writers must change their mindset intelligently, to rearrange the paradigm before they pour it into writings.
The barriers to ways of thinking that require broader descriptions are currently being resolved in the learning class, while the public sphere needs smart, enlightenment, concise, and understandable writings.
This is also becoming a point of evaluation for Lampung Post when they hold an opinion writing training. A short writing model is also given to participants when they faced the same conditions.
To the contributors, we only have hope that Lampost will keep this column under any circumstances. Because only the Lampost who is still loyal to create an opinion column for the readers while other newspapers have closed it with almost the same classic reason, “economy.”
Let us all pray that this pandemic will pass soon and the life will back to normal. The road to the future is still long. Hopefully, Lampost will still be loyal in providing this “vehicle” for each generation. [PR Team]
