Center provides facilities for historic session coverage
JAKARTA (JP): Despite the sudden influx of new media publications in this era of reform, the number of journalists covering the General Session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) has nearly halved from the number that covered the MPR's session last year, an official has said.
Head of the Assembly's public relations unit Eddie Siregar said there were only 2,152 journalists who had registered to cover this month's session -- one of the most crucial events that decides the country's future.
The 21-day meeting has succeeded in electing Indonesia's president and vice president in a democratic way which the country has never seen before.
"It's really beyond our expectation. We had predicted more journalists would be here covering these important events, highlighted with heated debates and political dynamism," Siregar told The Jakarta Post in a recent interview.
"We had more than 4,000 local and foreign journalists covering the MPR session last year," he added.
Of the total 2,152 journalists covering the Assembly session, that ended on Thursday, 1,180 were from the print media, 551 from the electronic media and around 300 others were reporters from overseas or who worked for foreign news agencies.
Since the downfall of former president Soeharto in May of last year, the country has enjoyed greater freedom of the press which has resulted in the birth of new newspapers, tabloids and magazines.
Data from the Ministry of Information showed that until mid 1997, there were only 289 publications -- comprising of tabloids, newspapers and magazines -- registered at the ministry.
The number, however, jumped to 1,267 in August of this year.
Siregar said the drop in the number of journalists in the session, was probably caused by the announcement made earlier by the assembly secretariat general which said that the session would have been divided into two phases: the first from Oct. 1 to Oct. 3., and the second from Oct. 22 to Oct. 28.
However, the first plenary session on Oct. 1 decided to change the schedule so that the session would continue without a break.
To serve the journalists, the Assembly secretariat general set up a media center in the Nusantara IV room where journalists could immediately write their reports on the session.
Facilities such as computers, facsimile machines, telephone lines and internet links were provided at the media center and journalists could use them free of charge.
In running the media center, the session organizer was supported by state-owned telecommunications operator PT Telkom and PT Pos Indonesia.
"We have to get sponsorship apart from the available funds to meet our limited budget. The companies help us in providing computers and the networks," Siregar said but he declined to disclose the size of the budget.
The Assembly organizers set certain rules that journalists should abide by if they wanted to enter the MPR compound to cover the sessions.
Photographers and TV crews should wear formal dress when the president attended the session.
"Putting on t-shirts and jeans is not allowed in the Assembly compound during the session," Siregar said, adding however, that not all the rules and protocols could be met by journalists.
"We tried our best to remind them (journalists) to respect the Assembly and the events taking place inside it by dressing themselves properly. This is a much revered occasion," he told the Post.
He said journalists would only obey the rules on outfits on the first day of the session or when the president arrived at the swearing-in ceremony.
He also complained about the improper behavior shown by some journalists, especially the new and inexperienced ones, who sometimes used harsh words to get quick service from the center's officials or asked about too many trivial things.
"Many new publications sent new reporters here and most of them had very little knowledge about the session. Too many things were asked of us, even simple ones such as where the meeting room for the Indonesian Military (TNI) faction was," he added. (emf)