Public response and opinion

Antara's legacy as a news organization is the documentation of Indonesia's decolonization process and formative years as a nation. Antara became an alternative news source for the fledgling Indonesian press which could not afford the services of its rival Aneta, and nationalist interpretations in its reporting contrasted that of the Dutch news agency. Despite these advances, political scientist Oey Hong Lee observed that the overall impact of Antara's reporting remained limited while Aneta continued to exist, "reflecting on the weakness of the nationalist press" and with "Antara's predominantly home-based news coverage finding its way only into more nationalist minded newspapers and progressive Chinese press organs".

Hill argues that journalists and guerrilla soldiers were equally important in winning the Indonesian National Revolution. Antara and nationalist newspapers, which were largely unrestricted under the postwar transitional Allied administration, engaged in a war of propaganda in order to gain international recognition of an independent Indonesia. On the occasion of the agency's 69th anniversary, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono stated, "Antara made immense contributions in documenting the nation's struggle during the period of revolution, such that its role must not be forgotten."d

The Indonesian National Armed Forces, whose growing sociopolitical involvement in the 1950s resulted in a "triangular power structure" with President Sukarno and the Communist Party of Indonesia, grew wary of Antara's leftist leaning under government management. It countered by establishing the Armed Forces Information Centre (Pusat Pemberitaan Angkatan Bersendjata, PPAB) in 1965 to disseminate the policies and views of the Armed Forces. A consortium of newspapers also sought to establish an unaffiliated news agency in 1966 when it formed the KNI Foundation (Jajasan Kantorberita Nasional Indonesia), but staff and resources were limited compared to Antara, which received government funding. Both agencies had ceased operations by 2001.

Romano and Senior argue that Antara's relationship with the government puts the agency at risk of engaging in self-censorship in recent years. Internal reforms immediately after 1998 did not completely eliminate the culture of cronyism that had come to characterize the relationship between the government and the press. The two note, however, that Antara journalists were given greater rights to affiliate and organize into unions than their peers in other news organizations.