Activists worry about information agency

Activists worry about information agency

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Press activists criticized the government's plan to establish a
public information dissemination agency for fear that it would
only pave the way for a return to the New Order's tight
information policy.

Ignatius Haryanto, coordinator of the Coalition for Freedom to
Access Information, said that the government had failed to
clarify whether the agency would serve the President or the whole
Cabinet.

"If this agency will only serve the President, why doesn't the
government appoint a spokesperson to communicate her policies?.
But if this agency is also to serve the Cabinet, I think the
press faces a serious threat, because in several policies
regarding technical matters like economics or banking, we need
experts instead of a spokesman to explain those things," Haryanto
told The Jakarta Post.

State Minister for Information and Telecommunications Syamsul
Mu'arif said the government planned to establish the public
information agency to disseminate information from its own
perspective and to avoid the confusing information spread by the
press.

Syamsul said that the agency would gather all news on
government policies and the public could access any information
regarding government policies through it, "therefore the agency
should become a reliable source."

Separately, Ati Nurbaiti, chairwoman of the Alliance of
Independent Journalists (AJI), said that the plan proved that the
Office of the State Minister of Information had never been quite
sure of what it was assigned to do since its inception, although
it did state that it would not censor the press.

"The news that the government is to establish a public
information dissemination agency is alarming; it reinforces
suspicions of a government's prone to efforts to return, in many
ways so far, to the days when it could steer press content to
ensure accuracy according to its definition," Ati said on Monday.

Both Ati and Haryanto agreed that the presence of a
presidential spokesman had indeed been suggested to make her
intentions clear to the media and the public at large.

But a planned information agency as described by Syamsul would
not help measures toward an informed society, particularly given
the country's experience under the New Order, Ati said.

"Within this current war against terrorism even citizens of
the supposedly most democratic nation, the United States, have
become alarmed at what is seen as threats to civil liberties,
including those pertaining to access to information.

"Members of the public must be free to access and select
information to help them to make decisions and eventually become
involved in decision-making which affects their lives," Ati said,
adding that the answer to frequent complaints of inaccurate
reports, which were not always unfounded, lies only in increasing
professionalism within media organizations and by professional
associations.