National news agency
After the Dutch relinquished all of their possessions in the Indies in 1962, the Indonesian government began mobilizing the mass media in its efforts to build a unified nation. President Sukarno released an executive decree which reorganized Antara as the National News Agency Institute (Lembaga Kantor Berita Nasional, or LKBN) under increased government control. Within three weeks of its reorganization on 24 September, the reorganized Antara became a supercorporation with its merger with other existing news agencies: the Indonesian Press Bureau (PIA), the Asian Press Board (APB), and the Indonesian National Press and Publicity Service (INPS).
Antara received financial assistance from the government and was placed directly under the president's control, giving him the authority to appoint the agency's managing director and editor-in-chief. Antara's position in the structure of government resulted in confusion over its ownership and control, as well as shifting editorial views in the coming decades. As Sukarno pursued increasingly leftist policies, the conservative media accused Antara for its "explicitly partisan" reporting. Following his removal from office, the subsequent government also used the agency to further its policies, prompting criticism from the liberal media.
An abortive coup in 1965, blamed on the Communist Party of Indonesia and its allies, left Antara under command of the Indonesian National Armed Forces. Nearly one-third of its editorial staff were dismissed, and many journalists sympathetic to the Communist Party were killed in the subsequent anti-communist purge. After Suharto assumed the presidency in the following year, the agency produced many of its news reports based on official government sources. Independent news outlets published stories on politically sensitive topics only if they had been reported by Antara in order to avoid sanctions should the stories be found offensive by government leaders. Although the government released a decree affirming freedom of the press, news publishers had to obtain a Permit To Publish (Surat Izin Terbit) from the Ministry of Information and a Permit To Print (Surat Izin Cetak) from the military security authority Kopkamtib. This ensured the suppression of publications with militant views.
Suharto resigned his presidency in 1998, and licensing requirements for media organizations were lifted the following September as the number of authorized publications surged from 289 to over 2,000 in the span of 16 months. Antara attempted to reinvent its image into that of an independent news agency amid the wave of political reforms, but there were allegations of continued bias toward the policies of Suharto's successor B. J. Habibie. President Abdurrahman Wahid later sacked the agency's managing director, Parni Hadi, and accused him of "dominating the news agency and trying to turn Antara into his private company". Hadi's replacement, appointed to the post without any journalism experience, was specifically tasked to make the agency more independent.
In 2007, Antara was removed from the control of the presidency and reorganized as a statutory corporation. It had experienced financial losses in recent years and sought a Rp 450 billion (US$ 50 million) bailout from the government in the following year in order to modernize the agency's business capabilities with the goal of becoming an independent business entity.
