Formally established in 1978, more than 20 years after it was first proposed, the monument is located in Surakarta, Central Java, and operated by the Ministry of Communications and Informatics.

[3] Thirteen years later, on 9 February 1946, the PWI was formed in the building;[4] the date is commemorated in Indonesia as National Press Day.

[7] That year David Kristian Budhiyanto of Petra Christian University wrote that the museum was rarely visited and in some places poorly maintained.

[9] Between January and September 2013 the museum received 26,249 visitors, an increase of 250 per cent over the previous year's target; this was credited to the various promotional efforts undertaken.

[10][11] The museum is now promoted as a site for educational tourism[4] and accepts donations of materials related to the press in Indonesia.

At the front of the museum is a parking area and two public boards where the latest editions of local newspapers (as of 2013, Solopos, Suara Merdeka, and Republika) can be read freely.

[1] The museum includes a media centre, where the general public can access the internet without charge on one of nine computers; a library, with a collection of approximately 12,000 books; and a room in which digitalised copies of old newspapers and magazines can be read.

[3] The museum holds over a million newspapers and magazines published in various parts of the Indonesian archipelago from colonial times until the present day.

[13] The front of the main entrance hall holds ten busts of important figures in the history of journalism in Indonesia.

This includes Tirto Adhi Soerjo, Djamaluddin Adinegoro, Sam Ratulangi, and Ernest Douwes Dekker.

[13] In the rear of the main entrance hall is a series of six dioramas illustrating communications and the press throughout Indonesian history.