AJI elects new president<\/p>\n
The Jakarta Post, Cipanas, West Java<\/p>\n
The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) elected Heru
\nHendratmoko of Radio 68H late on Saturday as its new president,
\nreplacing Eddy Suprapto of Kontan business weekly.<\/p>\n
AJI was set up in 1994, triggered by the closure of Detik,
\nTempo and Editor news publications.<\/p>\n
The new secretary-general elected along with Heru for the next
\nthree years is Abdul Manan, also of Tempo. Voters represented 684
\nmembers from 21 AJI chapters across the country.<\/p>\n
Heru, a cofounder of AJI, pledged that he would strive for
\n\"democratic press management\" apart from continuing efforts to
\nimprove journalists' professionalism and welfare.<\/p>\n
A survey commissioned by AJI and released on Friday, reported
\nthat from 400 journalists interviewed in 17 cities, 65 percent
\nreceived a monthly income in the range of Rp 600,000 to Rp 1.8
\nmillion. While 48.3 percent said wages should be the main agenda
\nof unions, 66.8 percent said their companies did not have unions.
\nReporters have cited difficulties in organizing.<\/p>\n
Regarding efforts to increase bargaining power journalists
\nwere asked whether ownership in collective shares was necessary,
\nto which 89 percent replied in the affirmative. The survey also
\nrevealed that 54.8 percent of journalists said unions should
\nstrive to have them represented on the managements.<\/p>\n
The congress issued a resolution on Sunday saying that taking
\n\"envelopes\" (the local term for bribes for journalists) should be
\nsubject to the anticorruption law, following a heated debate
\ngiven the gray area of what constitutes \"envelopes\".<\/p>\n
The above survey revealed that while 85.5 percent of
\nrespondents said receiving cash from sources constituted a bribe,
\nonly 65 percent said the same for gifts of valuable items like
\ntape recorders and mobile phones.<\/p>\n
Sociologist Emmanuel Subangun, among speakers invited on
\nFriday, cited \"amazing\" findings in the survey such as
\ncontradictions regarding the issue of bribes and the level of
\nsatisfaction over earnings. Only 7.3 percent of respondents said
\ntheir earnings were \"very low\" while he said the findings
\n\"confirms that journalists, many with a university education,
\noccupy the lowest rank of society, earning only slightly above
\nthe current Jakarta minimum monthly wage of Rp 820,000.\"<\/p>\n
He said this picture of journalists may reflect one of the
\nnation's problems regarding underemployment, a condition where
\nearnings do not match qualifications and where performance is
\nhampered by a \"mismatch\" between education and occupation.<\/p>",
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