Press charged with disinformation<\/p>\n
By Harry Bhaskara<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian press retains many of its less-
\nthan-satisfactory qualities three years into the so-called reform
\nera. Pundits assessing press performance said in a recent
\ndiscussion here that they found that the \"culture of lies\",
\nofficial statements, disinformation and biased reporting remained
\npervasive.<\/p>\n
Through a pliant and unprofessional media, political actors
\nreadily find partners willing to serve their often distasteful
\ninterests at the cost of the public interest.<\/p>\n
The military, for example, was adamant to impose a military
\nemergency status in troubled provinces like Aceh and Maluku
\nduring the early months of President Abdurrahman Wahid's
\ngovernment. But now they are opposed even to civil emergency.<\/p>\n
\"This about-face is reflective of the excellent disinformation
\ncampaign waged by the military,\" said senior journalist Aristides
\nKatoppo, one of the three speakers in the discussion.
\nBy \"excellent\" Aristides meant the military's ability to create a
\npublic image that it was opposed to the declaration of a state of
\nemergency, while in fact it was to the contrary.<\/p>\n
\"Even in the absence of a state of emergency the military was
\nbold enough to stage a defiant stance in front of the
\npresidential palace,\" Aristides said, referring to the 7,000
\ntroops gathered near the palace earlier this month following the
\nfiring of the national police chief.<\/p>\n
He said the current rift between Abdurrahman and his Vice
\nPresident Megawati Soekarnoputri was the result of a skillful
\ndisinformation campaign worked out by remnants of the New Order
\nforces adept in \"parroting\" the rhetoric of the pro-reform camp.<\/p>\n
\"It is Soehartoism without a Soeharto situation,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Plans are afoot, Aristides said, that as soon as Megawati
\nbecomes president she will be dethroned in the way Benazir Bhutto
\nof Pakistan was toppled.<\/p>\n
\"These are circumstances where 'thief cries thief'. The
\nperpetrators, who are the actual thieves, wash their hands by
\nfirst calling the other camps thieves,\" he said, referring to the
\nforthcoming \"Benazir operation\". The question is whether or not
\nthe public are able to recognize who the real \"thieves\" are, he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Aristides' description only indicates the extent of
\ndisinformation in a country devastated by multiple crises. \"I am
\nsad to learn that such type of conflict can occur during peace
\ntime,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Andre Hardjana, a communications expert from the University of
\nIndonesia, had earlier said that disinformation clashes only
\nnormally occurred during times of war.<\/p>\n
\"We have lived so long in a culture of lies that we are no
\nlonger able to distinguish between truthful news and false news,\"
\nAristides said, referring to the 30-year rule of Soeharto that
\nabruptly came to an end in 1998.<\/p>\n
The discussion on disinformation and biased reporting took
\nplace at Taman Ismail Marzuki on June 13 and was organized by a
\ngroup called Get-together for Democracy, a polling and media
\nstudies institute.<\/p>\n
An activist for the urban poor, Wardah Hafidz, said the press
\nand the mass media in general were guilty of presenting views
\nbased on orders by unscrupulous parties. \"Hence the saying, there
\nis no demonstration without the mass media,\" she said.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, fierce business competition among the mass
\nmedia has often pushed public interests to the sidelines, she
\nsaid. \"The mass media has also become a tool for money
\nlaundering. Owners of illicit money have acquired new newspapers
\nor television stations,\" she said.<\/p>\n
Wardah, a sociologist, also said the system in which the media
\noperated was deeply embedded in feudal culture.<\/p>\n
\"The voice from the palace, statements from ministers dominate
\nthe news. Very seldom are the common people heard except when
\nthey are dissenting against the government or are beaten black
\nand blue in bloodied rallies and riots,\" she said.<\/p>\n
The mass media see things mostly in the same way the
\ngovernment looks at things, she said.<\/p>\n
\"They regard the common people as an uneducated lot,
\ndismissing their protest rallies as the work of political
\nengineering.<\/p>\n
\"If an NGO gets a donation, the mass media often say that it
\nis exploitation of the poor. But they heap the government with
\npraise when it receives loans from foreign countries.<\/p>\n
\"When the loan is drained by corruption, the mass media report
\nthat it is committed by 'certain parties',\" she said.<\/p>\n
Wardah said that the press was still guilty of self-censorship
\nand that it needed to set up a new agenda of reporting away from
\npalace, to the reporting of people on the street.<\/p>\n
\"The news agenda should be set by the people, like they do in
\npublic hearings in the United States, it should cover a wide
\nvariety of issues including corruption, health, consumer
\nprotection,\" she said.<\/p>\n
Hardjana emphasized that the press \"must stop selling news
\nonly for the powerful.\" Hardjana defined disinformation as
\ntreason against information.<\/p>\n
Information is supposed to remove uncertainties, while
\ndisinformation, he added, \"prolong (uncertainties) as we can see
\naround us today.\"<\/p>\n
Aristides said that as journalists, \"we are not adequately
\ntrained to deter disinformation.\"<\/p>\n
Citing the recent media centennial celebration of founding
\npresident Sukarno's birthday, he said, the press could have
\nstudied newspaper reports prior to the Sept. 30 1965 coup attempt
\nand how the reports presented the extent of the war of
\ndisinformation war with the involvement of foreign forces.<\/p>\n
\"We learned from that period that disinformation was produced
\nby wrapping true information with an overwhelmingly amount of
\nfalse information. It is a bit like honey-coated poison,\" he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
He cited the issue of the Council of Generals -- said to have
\nplanned the seizure of power in the early 1960s -- that came to
\nthe fore during the extraordinary military tribunal following the
\n1965 putsch.<\/p>\n
When the tribunal was over, he said, the issue was turned
\nupside down with the government saying that the council was
\nresponsible for the promotion of the ranks of generals.<\/p>\n
Disinformation can also be made through the Internet or
\nthrough an agency such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
\nAristides said.<\/p>\n
The issue of accountability that has formed the basis of the
\nIMF's repeated refusal of granting the much needed US$400 million
\naid was turned into the issue of the independence of Bank
\nIndonesia, he said.<\/p>\n
\"Why the fuss over the central bank's independence?\" he said,
\nadding that the bank's laws were prepared by German experts.<\/p>\n
The press, Aristides said, \"expanded during the New Order
\nperiod and found it awkward to operate in an atmosphere of
\nfreedom.\" He added that the press was too important to be left to
\nthe media alone or to the government.<\/p>\n
\"The press strives to defend the interests of the public but
\nit never consults the public. It may have conducted a polling on
\nvarious issues but never on themselves,\" Aristides said.<\/p>\n
The writer is a journalist with The Jakarta Post.<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/press-charged-with-disinformation-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }