A balance between profit, readers' needs and idealism

Ati Nurbaiti, Jakarta

The performance of the Indonesian media is pleasantly surprising, if we can believe the Asia Democracy Index of 2005. Published by the Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia, based in Singapore, the survey covers 16 countries and was conducted between February and June 2005.

The sample was small, with a mere 100 respondents in Indonesia, but the surveyors claim they were from a variety of professions and located in Jakarta, West Java, Banten, Pontianak in West Kalimantan, Central Java, South Sumatra, Jambi, East Java and Aceh.

Among six indicators of political freedoms, the results for the media were as follows:

Perceptions of the media Percentage
1.The media is free and independent from government and other sources 58.25
2. Journalists and the media present a diversity 73.75
of political views 3. The media contributes positively to democracy 76.50
4. Journalists have adequate access to public information 59.75
Source: Asia Democracy Index 2005 by Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia, with country partner Indonesia Research and Strategic Analysis.

So the general picture of our media is not all bad, with press freedom still relatively high compared to other nations in Asia. The Philippines, followed by Indonesia, is ranked highest among the 16 countries.

But to improve ourselves we need to take into account the things that need attention. Obviously, of the above respondents asked about media independence, 42 percent did not perceive the media to be free and independent of the government and "other sources." Surveyors cite widespread bribery of journalists (the "envelope culture"), the buying of air time on talk shows and other forms of advertisements by high profile figures in politics and business, and the efforts of both political parties and big business in setting up their own media or buying into media, in order to influence public opinion.

Media practitioners are also wary of what they see as "signs of returning state control" over media content, such as indicated by the four new government regulations on broadcasting.

But even without this, the media has plenty to worry about. While it is encouraging that over 70 percent of the above respondents say that the media represents a diversity of political views after the far more timid times under the New Order regime that ended in 1998, those in the business strongly sense the apathy resulting from this cacophony of voices.

Scampering for answers on how to increase both audience and advertisers, blame has been pointed to a lack of professionalism among journalists, to universally decreasing attention spans and the Internet, and increasing competition from existing and new local and foreign print and broadcast media.

The answers have been a mixture of: Increase professionalism, avoid getting sued, wake up to the changing times, don't be too serious regarding content, brighten up presentation, make costs more efficient, diverse products ("Should we produce a tabloid paper or just dumb down the existing paper? Should we get into the hotel business? What are other media-related businesses?"), get the audience while they're young, cater better to advertisers' needs, etc.

We could look to the experience of the media in other countries who have tested some measures in facing up to the competition. In the United States, from which numerous books on self criticism of the media have come, "amusing ourselves to death" has been one recipe, in the form of either funny or ghastly reality shows. Television journalists have related how costs have been cut to make news presentation shorter and more cost efficient; but on the other hand, money was splurged on expensive equipment such as helicopters. Since the repeated broadcast of police tailing OJ Simpson in his white Bronco, every other station now wants to ensure they have this same capacity to produce exciting aerial cops and robbers news shows.

Senior American journalists said it was ironically the disaster of Sept. 11, 2001, that returned pride to their profession, compared to what they referred to as the embarrassing coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.

Ten years ago a newspaper reader wrote that with fewer lengthy articles, it was the print media that should be blamed for shortening attention span rather than television news, which provides for "very long, very shallow" attention spans.

But then, those in the media business note that it is mostly old journalists and old readers who are complaining. A study conducted last year in the United States showed that young people were using both the Internet and the print media. Nonetheless, media executives here are nervously watching declining readership and increasing competition for advertisers.

As state censorship and threats become less relevant, the outlook for next year is that the Indonesian media will continue to compromise in the search for balance between profit and quality journalism. Some have even confidently decided that it's not quality journalism that their audiences need. In compromising, we are not always going to tell you explicitly when an advertisement is an advertisement, because that makes the advertisers squirm, and we need them.

If you feel a bit indignant, resentful or mad at this, yours would be a rare voice. In the absence of public pressure, the media here, like media elsewhere, will continue to compromise because it is necessary. We would rather stick around and have criticism hurled at us than evaporate along with all the other enterprises that have collapsed around us. There's not only local competition, there's now foreign-owned media to deal with. For example, Rupert Murdoch has taken up shares in Astro TV, and is due to air quite soon.

In this environment of tight competition, pandering to the advertisers is one quick-yielding way to survive. In the long term, however, such a strategy risks loss of credibility, with media outlets selling out too much to advertisers at the expense of loyal readers and viewers.

The life of a media company could thus depend on its ability to balance "good business" with maintaining credibility, regardless of whether readers protest or not regarding dubious content. Easier said than done -- once credibility is lost, you're dead.

That is the general rule of the media; it's a business of trust not unlike banking. But in Indonesia, this may not necessarily be the case.

The Ambon Express was a new publication of the Jawa Pos group launched during the height of the brutal communal conflict in Maluku province, in which communities were split along ethnic and religious lines. The group faced allegations that it was profiting immensely from the conflict, which started in 1999, with high sales for both its newspapers; the new Ambon Express, was quickly labeled a "Muslim" daily, and the established paper, Suara Maluku, was considered a "Christian" paper.

It did not make sense that one story could have versions that satisfied both warring communities, clearly indicating an absence of quality control through the reinforcement of a single editorial policy.

Almost all media in Maluku at that time were accused of taking sides. The CEO of the Jawa Pos group, Dahlan Iskan, denied the allegations that the group was exploiting the conflict, saying that he had to find a way to accommodate the Muslim journalists who could not even reach the Suara Maluku office in a Christian- dominated area given the real danger of getting killed.

The puzzle remained of how two newspapers of one group often seemed to print different versions of the same story -- but such questions, if any, were quickly forgotten. Thus the credibility of this media group remained solid, and it was able to shrewdly identify a community's needs in a given region. This might not be the kind of credibility preached by media idealists but the group is still alive and growing.

There is much homework still to be done in the media after we gained all this freedom after 1998. Media enterprises that know for sure that they would lose audiences once they throw out "quality journalism" out the window need to invest more in increasing professionalism through training; but this is still limited to a few companies.

Getting to know their audiences is another big task, with many media people trapped in the old mind-set of "we know best". The fear that the Internet will kill off print media could become a self-fulfilling prophesy, with readers surfing more and more searching for what is absent in their morning news.

The author is a staff writer of The Jakarta Post.