Our Bukalapak coverage: what we could’ve done better

Image credit: macor / 123RF Stock Photo.

Using anonymous sources in stories is common in journalism. Familiar names like The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Bloomberg, TechCrunch, and The Information use it. WSJ’s takedown of Theranos, for example, relied on anonymous sources.

But unnamed informants have to be used with caution. If used carelessly, it could lead to inaccurate stories.

It is with this in mind that we evaluate our recent coverage of the acquisition talks between Indonesian ecommerce startups Tokopedia and Bukalapak.

The question: did we meet our ethical standards? In summary: while we met some of our guidelines, we could’ve done better. For that, we’d like to apologize to Bukalapak, Tokopedia, and our readers.

Here’s how we went about covering the story, and what in hindsight could be improved.

Better sourcing

Although we obtained two senior-level sources from within the organizations represented in the story, we should’ve sought one more first-hand source to back the main claim in the original article: that Tokopedia passed on acquiring Bukalapak. We’ve removed this part from the article.

Giving people more time to respond

We did reach out to KMK, Bukalapak, and Tokopedia for comments before the story was published. We included KMK’s denial of the main claim in the first draft.

We also reached out to Bukalapak’s CEO and CFO once, four hours before the story was published, but did not get a response from them. However, our guidelines state that we should’ve contacted them multiple times through multiple channels, and given them up to one working day to respond.

Conclusion

While we do not regret pursuing this story, and we’re glad certain facts have come to light because of it, we definitely could’ve approached it better. By publishing this review, we aim to hold ourselves accountable to the Tech in Asia community, and promise to improve.

Update: We are very sorry, Bukalapak.