The Jakarta Post started as a collaboration between four Indonesian media groups at the urging of Information Minister Ali Murtopo and politician Jusuf Wanandi.

Noted for being a training ground for local and international reporters, The Jakarta Post has won several awards and has been described as being "Indonesia's leading English-language daily".

The Jakarta Post was the brainchild of Information Minister Ali Murtopo and politician Jusuf Wanandi, who were disappointed at the perceived bias against Indonesia in foreign news sources.

To ensure credibility, the two convinced a group of competing newspapers (the Golkar-backed Suara Karya, the Catholic-owned Kompas, the Protestant-owned Sinar Harapan, and the weekly Tempo) to back the nascent paper.

[4] After PT Bina Media Tenggara decided to back the paper,[5] Wanandi spent several months contacting influential figures at the competing newspapers.

In exchange for their cooperation, Kompas requested a 25 percent share in the new newspaper, for which it would handle the daily business operations, such as printing, circulation, and advertising.

The establishment of the paper was further aided by incoming Information Minister Harmoko, who received five percent interest for his role in acquiring a license.

[7] Further details, including Sinar Harapan's share of stock and the paper's publisher, were decided at a meeting at Wanandi's office in March 1983.

[9] The first newsroom of the new paper was located in Kompas's former laundry room, a one-story warehouse; the first employees had to do the layout by hand, using pica poles as straight edges.

[10] During the first few months, the writers translated and recycled previously published stories from Indonesian media, which were later picked up by foreign wire services.

Although it was originally hoped that the paper would begin to turn a profit within the first three years, the recession in the early 1980s led to the start-up funds being depleted.

[24] The Jakarta Post officially endorsed the Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla ticket in the 2014 Indonesian presidential election,[25] their first time doing so in its 31-year history.

[23] In 1996, The Jakarta Post faced invigorated competition when media tycoon Peter Gontha bought a controlling stake in rival paper The Indonesian Observer and revamped the publication.

[42] However, The Indonesian Observer was unable to match The Jakarta Post's quality of independent reporting because of Gontha's business connections to the Suharto family.

[11] The Jakarta Post uses the inverted pyramid style of reporting, with the most important information at the beginning of the article;[14] during the 1980s, many Indonesian papers put the lead further down.

"[14] Peter Gelling, of The New York Times, notes that The Jakarta Post has been considered a "training ground" for local reporters, and offers apprenticeship programs.

[49] The paper received the Adam Malik Award in January 2009 for their reporting on foreign politics; the coverage was considered accurate and educated, with good analysis.

[51] Another journalist received the Adam Malik Award in 2014 for his writings which assisted the ministry to distribute information regarding foreign policy implementation.