“Clean energy isn’t just technology. It’s people’s lives changing.” This statement set the tone for the KINETIK NEX Journalist Training 2025, held on 6 November 2025 at Artotel Senayan, Jakarta. Fourteen journalists from across Indonesia gathered for the training, aimed at strengthening clean energy reporting that is more contextual, human-centered, and inclusive.
Harriet Horsfall, First Secretary (Climate Finance) DFAT
Selected from more than 100 applicants, the participants represented both national media outlets and regional newsrooms from Sulawesi, Maluku, Kalimantan, and Sumatra. The training was opened by Harriet Horsfall, First Secretary (Climate Finance) at DFAT, who underscored the critical role of the media in connecting energy transition narratives with the realities faced by communities on the ground.
Clean energy starts with everyday experience
Marilyn Parhusip – Founder/CEO Leastric: The role of startups in clean energy innovation
The opening session challenged how journalists commonly approach clean energy innovation. Instead of starting with technology, participants were invited to trace stories back to everyday issues experienced by communities, such as opaque electricity bills or limited access to energy data.
“Behind every data point, there’s a story” served as a reminder that numbers and technology are always intertwined with human experience. In this context, energy was framed not simply as a matter of system efficiency, but as one of visibility, control, and fairness for end users.
Gender, disability, and equal access to energy
KINETIK’s GEDSI Partnership Manager, Pujiaryati Anggiasari, on Gender and Inclusion lens on clean energy reporting
The following session examined clean energy reporting through a gender and social inclusion lens. Participants were encouraged to ask fundamental questions: who is most affected when energy access is unequal, and whose voices are most often absent from media coverage?
The discussion highlighted that energy access in Indonesia remains uneven, particularly for women, persons with disabilities, and other marginalized groups. As a result, energy reporting cannot be separated from broader questions of social justice. Choices around language, framing, and sources play a decisive role in whether coverage reinforces existing inequalities or helps make them visible.
“There is no energy justice or climate justice without equal access,” said Alfian, one of the participants, reflecting on the session.
Participants were also invited to reflect on unconscious bias in reporting, including the use of non-inclusive terms or the tendency to portray certain groups as passive recipients rather than active agents. For Annisa Rizky Madina, the session offered new insight into how closely energy issues are linked to the experiences of marginalized communities and persons with disabilities, a dimension that is still rarely centered in mainstream energy coverage.
Seeing energy issues more holistically
Dhana Kencana, IDN Times journalist: Beyond the Story
In the session on energy issue frameworks, participants explored the distinctions and overlaps between climate reporting and energy reporting. While climate issues are often discussed at a global scale and over long time horizons, energy issues are deeply local and immediate, affecting electricity prices, supply reliability, and household access.
The session emphasized that the energy transition is not simply about replacing fossil fuel power plants with renewable ones. It also involves shifts in energy production and consumption systems, regulation, business models, and the social and economic impacts that come with them.
The concept of a just transition emerged as a central theme. Without attention to workers, local communities, and groups that depend on legacy energy systems, the transition risks creating new forms of inequality.
Within this context, cleantech startups were introduced as an important part of the solution, particularly in expanding energy access in underserved regions. The relationship between energy access, startup innovation, and long-term net-zero goals was presented as a rich and relevant story space for journalists to explore.
Solution-focused journalism and stories that offer hope
The training also introduced solution-focused journalism as a framework for clean energy reporting. This approach encourages journalists to move beyond problem-focused narratives by examining responses through four key elements: response, evidence, insight, and limitations.
Energy issues were seen as particularly well suited to solutions journalism, given the abundance of innovation alongside real-world challenges such as financing, regulation, and long-term sustainability. Strong solutions reporting can offer what is often described as “hope with teeth”, hope grounded in data and lived experience rather than empty optimism.
This approach was also positioned as a way to counter audience fatigue around climate and energy crisis coverage, by offering stories that provide context, direction, and a sense of agency.
Strengthening stories through visuals
Adi Guno, cameraman at Al-Jazeera: The art of visual storytelling
The final session focused on the role of visuals and video in deepening energy reporting. Participants learned that video is not merely a supplementary format, but a journalistic language capable of conveying emotion, process, and context more fully.
By understanding the basics of visual composition, audio, and narrative flow, journalists were encouraged not only to explain issues, but to show realities on the ground. Visual storytelling was presented as a key tool for making energy issues more accessible to audiences increasingly accustomed to digital-first content.
Beyond jargon and statistics
KINETIK NEX Journalist Training 2025 reaffirmed that strong clean energy reporting always starts with people. From everyday experiences and questions of gender and disability to issues of equitable access, energy is ultimately a story about lives and livelihoods.
Through this training, KINETIK NEX aims to foster journalism that is more critical, inclusive, and relevant, ensuring that Indonesia’s energy transition is understood not only as a policy target, but as a shared process that touches communities across the country.
