Bung Harpa has covered a football match at Baku Olympics Stadium, Azerbaijan. Photo used with permission
Haris Kristanto Pardede is among Indonesia’s prominent football YouTubers whose channel has become a trusted source of sports news. This author interviewed Pardede about his journey from being a traditional sports journalist at Koran Sindo to becoming an online football expert.
Pardede became a content creator during the pandemic, but he gained a lot of followers when he started covering the Indonesian national football team during the 2023 Asian Cup in Qatar. As of this writing, Pardede’s Bung Harpa channel has 118,000 subscribers and 1,072 videos and has amassed over 22.5 million views.
While other football pundits rely on streaming sites for their coverage, Pardede has been reporting on the field and even attends games held in other countries. He provides viewers with basic information about football and dispels sports rumors, which helps prevent the spread of disinformation. He frequently engages with members and officers of the Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI). He is also known for regularly sharing first-hand information that has yet to be reported by mainstream media while posting content based on his observations in the field.
This author interviewed Pardede at the Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium in Jakarta.
Arpan Rachman (AR): You now have a YouTube channel with many followers. What was your initial motivation for creating it?
Haris Kristanto Pardede (HKP): Football has been in my blood since I was little. I started a YouTube channel because I love football and want to share my thoughts and experiences. I finally discovered a platform I enjoyed since I could communicate with the subscribers and other journalists, who undoubtedly have different opinions. This is what I think enriches the content on my channel.
AR: What was the difficulty you encountered as you transitioned from being a sports journalist into a football pundit?
HKP: At the starting point, there weren’t many subscribers following this channel. I thought I was boring the audience as I was a journalist. The public on social media wanted more sensationalism. So, I just went back to the basics of reporting. When there was confusing news, I straightened out the rumor, and people started to believe it. It turns out that YouTube also has a market for this type of sports coverage.
AR: Please give more details about your suggestion for journalists and YouTubers to gain access to the football field during team practice and competition.
HKP: Because I was a journalist, I also knew the limits. It’s my passion, and I must understand ethics. I believe that viewers will accept our provided content as long as it is genuine and original. Cybercitizens will love whatever we broadcast to the public as long as it is genuine and upbeat, and it will also help the struggling Indonesian national football team.
AR: Should media outlets send more reporters to the field?
HKP: That is a challenge as well as an opportunity. When I went abroad several times and became the only citizen journalist from Indonesia who reported from the match field, I was happy because all the public’s ears and eyes were focused on me. Although, in the end, I felt alone, there were no fellow citizen reporters and professional journalists from Indonesia.
AR: What is the state of football reporting in Indonesia, and how can journalists and citizen reporters improve it?
HKP: Journalists in the new media today are perhaps not as daring or pro-active as before. In the past, we had to seek out our sources by going directly to the location and observing the game in the field. Now, more people work by compiling information like playing a puzzle because of many templates. So, in one news article, some journalists paste various information that previously existed in other media without needing to clarify. That is the challenge of today’s journalism.
If you look at the existing infrastructure, the support capacity is extraordinary. Any data is available, and information is easier to find. It only takes creativity to process it. What I feel is lacking in the current era is creativity. Therefore, some journalists would rely on oblique quotes rather than visit the field.
