There is no definitive source that states when the first news was presented. However, an interesting fact conveyed in the story of Prophet Noah. At that time, the earth was flooded and drowned for months.
Only the ship of Noah, those who believed and also the animals in pairs who survived. Until one of them asked how the condition of the flood outside? Finally the Prophet Noah sent the Hud-Hud bird to look at conditions after months.
A few moment later, Hud-Hud bird came and reported the conditions outside. He pointed out that the flood had subsided and Noah’s ark had been stranded on a mountain.
That was news or news that was first recorded on earth, whether it is right or wrong, since that moment the delivery of information on earth has transformed so fast, keeping up with the times.
In ancient Roman times, they had the idea of making daily notes in the form of scrolls commonly referred to as Acra Diurna. The activity changed drastically when Guttenberg introduced the innovation of a typewriter in the 15th century. Since then the history of newspaper development has entered a new phase, where papers have participated in the dissemination of the news. The first newspaper appeared in 1960 in America under the name Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick.
Through the expedition of western nation for the exploration of spices to the east, in 1744, a first Dutch newspaper named ” Bataviasche Nouvelles “ published in this archipelago.
The newspaper presented news of government, auction letters, and quotes from European newspapers. There has been ups and downs of the newspaper industry. The fighters dared to voice justice through underground newspapers for Indonesian independence.
The new order was the dark ages of mass media as freedom of the press was really limited by the government. Many newspapers criticized the government at that time was put on halt by the government. However, the reformation era promises freedom of the press.
The moment of globalization grew the meaning of freedom of expression through mass media. Until Marc Prensky (2001), a Harvard University graduate introduces the term digital native or native to the digital world to describe how complex the vortex of online networks.
Media information age has changed. Now we have met many online news portals that sprung like rainy season. Starting from a news portal with a legal body, a spreader of goodness, to the mainstream sites of hate speech and hoax news spreaders. They have one goal: to make it easier for today’s humans to access news content through laptop screens and the smartphone screens. Printed media has a serious competition.
It also happened at UNAIR as the academic community news originally ran through Warta Unair and published monthly in the form of tabloids, have been replaced with online media portal; news. unair.ac.id. But the media offline(printed media) is still maintained. Warta Unair has transformed into a magazine “Warta Universitas Airlangga” and published three monthly in 80 pages.
One of the reasons was also for environmental preservation. December 30, exactly two years ago, news.unair.ac.id was officially established.
Students and Scientific Attitude
Scientific attitude is the ultimate condition of a humanbeing after his life is crammed with scientific knowledge, then applied in scientific skills, through habituation, to become an attitude in both thinking and acting.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, defined scientific attitude with the term Scientific Temper in 1946. It is an attitude to explore new truths and knowledge. Not only limited to the world of science alone, because scientific attitude is also needed in life to solve the problematic life.
For students, scientific attitude have such a central role. Because through these habits, the student as an agent of change can harmonize something gained with the reality in the environment. Not merely making hypothesis, but through the thinking process, improving the Mind Mapping owned. Practically, students need a place and environment to hone their scientific attitude.
One of the things that can be optimized is through the role of online news portal, UNAIR NEWS in this regard. For two years, the existence of UNAIR NEWS should be rejuvenated as the actual medium in presenting campus progress. As literacy becomes one of the aspects in sharpening scientific attitude. Moreover, there are still a lot of students who are not aware of UNAIR NEWS existence.
Therefore, at the two year celebration for its establishment, UNAIR NEWS is expected to become the actual online media portal of campus and the academic community of Universitas Airlangga.
Thus, the era of World Class University (WCU) as the highest dream of Universitas Airlangga in this decade will be achieved with the support of UNAIR NEWS, through its information and news, as well as good news for all academic community. Hopefully. (*)
Editor: Bambang Bes