Claims of 'better journalism' not enough

Claims of 'better journalism' not enough
to describe the state of the media

Santi W.E. Soekanto
Journalist
Jakarta

A group of American broadcast journalists descended on
Surakarta, Central Java last April to interview Abu Bakar
Baasyir, the man accused as an "Indonesian terrorist". They
wanted to see the madrasah (Islamic school) that they believed
was the launching pad for Baasyir's militant Islamic teaching.

Among the first shots of the school they filmed was,
predictably, the graffiti on a bamboo curtain outside Bassyir's
dwelling that read: "Islam is our faith, Jihad is our way".

Despite Baasyir's insistence that his madrasah teaches only
the Koran and aqidah (core beliefs of Islam), the journalist's
commentary depicted the school as a breeding ground for
Indonesian Muslim militants. "This school is called Al Mukminun,
the Believers, but here students ... are taught to believe that
the only future for Indonesia is in an Islamic state," he told
the camera.

These journalists flew in and out of Indonesia within three
days, arriving with preconceived ideas of "Indonesian terrorists"
and leaving with the same prejudices.

A few years earlier, when Soeharto announced his resignation,
another American team of journalists came belatedly to the
People's Consultative Assembly compound. After midnight thousands
of students decided to remain in the compound they had been
occupying for days because they wanted to press for Soeharto's
trial.

Dozens of trucks carrying Marines tried to force their way
into the compound to flush out the students. Like the world
famous photo of a Chinese man standing before a tank shortly
before the Tiananmen Massacre, a handful of students lay down in
front of the first truck before it could advance into the
compound. A good photo scene -- but eventually, it was the
Marines' negotiators that convinced the students to leave the
legislature building.

The TV reporter from the American crew breathlessly told the
camera outside how disillusioned the students were because even
after forcing Soeharto out, violence was still being used against
them. A local journalist told her, "There's no violence inside
the compound at this moment, the negotiations are peaceful."

The reporter tossed her hair, and continued with her
commentary. True, the Indonesian Military up until that
historical moment of May 21 had not given the public much reason
to believe that it would not suddenly swing its way toward
Soeharto and crush the student-led reform movement. What the
reporter did, however, was force her prejudice into her reports.

Granted, these two separate incidents might be way too
insignificant to ever portray the quality of the American media
accurately or even proportionately. But Ati Nurbaiti's article on
U.S. journalists' pegging of Sept. 11 (The Jakarta Post, June 24)
as the "turning point" for the U.S. media to develop into
"serious" and better journalism is open to discussion.

U.S. senior journalists have reportedly lamented the
"shrinking diversity" of views of the U.S. media, a trend
attributable to the concentration of media ownership by tightly
knit families or financial groups. This meant media coverage on
almost any issue is dominated by the few media giants such as
ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, The
New York Times and The Washington Post.

But "better" journalism in a country whose Attorney General
recently killed its "freedom to information" and where owners
control pretty much what the media report?

Recent policies that in effect police the flow of information
include, according to international press freedom watchdog
Reporters without Borders (RSF), those regarding Internet
privacy.

Under the Patriot Act passed in October, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation has been authorized to install its "Carnivore"
program on several service providers to track the e-mails of
suspects possibly linked to Sept. 11. "...the confidentiality of
journalists' sources is threatened by this blank check given to
the FBI," RSF wrote.

RSF urged leaders in France, Germany and Italy to remind Bush
of media freedom. Bush "must ensure that respect for human rights
is once more at the heart of U.S. foreign policy," RSF concluded.

The U.S. media has been said to largely ignore the changes
affecting press freedom; and it indeed seems prone to tune out
"non-events". One incident was when U.S. Representative Dick
Armey of Texas on May 3 in a MSNBC program called for the ethnic
cleansing of the Muslim and Christian Palestinian population.

Yet, no American media organization picked it up. Not one
editorial was written criticizing the leader of the House of
Representatives of the U.S. Congress for advocating, on the
record, unapologetically, the perpetration of a war crime.
"Editors were simply not aware of Armey's statements -- it is a
non-event ..," the Council on American-Islamic Relations stated.

Last April, the American Free Press found a media gag when Ira
Hansen, a talk show host at KKOH 780 Radio in Reno, Nevada,
learned that he was fired because he had been criticizing U.S.
policy toward Israel. Hansen, a devout Christian and a "pro-
America" American, charged that powerful pro-Israel supporters
had forced the owners of his radio station to fire him.

Hansen said his boss had previously tried to stop him talking
about the Middle East. However, "after Sept. 11, I just couldn't
stop ... I got on air and said, 'The reason these Muslims are mad
at America is ... the absolute blind allegiance of the U.S. to
Israel and how we give Israel carte blanche treatment'".

Hansen said he had been monitoring the U.S. media since Sept.
11, and was amazed at the "virtual blackout" of any discussion of
Israel's role in the Middle East.

Last June 19, the media wrote how the Ohio State University's
commencement, with President Bush as speaker, had become a
rallying cry for free-speech protection.

A university official had threatened to arrest anyone who
disrupted the commencement. Student activists then asked whether
they had the right to boo their own president.

Again, these incidents might have been too disparate for us to
conclude that there's no such thing as press freedom and freedom
of speech in the U.S. There are cases to support the impression
that some of the journalists are finding themselves being burned
from both ends.

Last May an intense pressure campaign by several pro-Israel
groups reportedly sought to influence U.S. coverage of the Middle
East, including boycotts of several top media outlets and massive
phone, e-mail and letter-writing campaigns. These are on top of
subscription boycotts against the New York Times, Los Angeles
Times, San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune.

The pressure was unprecendented, says Jeffrey Dvorkin, the
ombudsman for the Washington DC-based National Public Radio, a
U.S.-wide radio network. "In the last three months I've received
14,000 e-mails and 9,000 of them deal with the Middle East," he
said, as quoted by Islam Online. "E-mail traffic in the last
month has overwhelmingly been accused of having a pro-Palestinian
bias."

"It's a little bit like 'you're with us or against us'," said
James Naughton, president of the Florida-based Poynter Institute
for Media Studies. "... the more insightful and human the stories
were, if they portrayed Arabs positively or Israelis negatively,
then there was hell to pay," Naughton said.

Claims of better journalism are simply not enough to describe
the state of the media in the U.S. or Indonesia.