'Communication among people is improving'
'Communication among people is improving'
JAKARTA (JP): Wimar Witoelar, a political observer and popular
talk show host, says the public's desire for "free communication"
is strong enough to withstand government attempts to control it.
"The public's desire for free communication continues to exist
and grow strong, even as the government tries to oppress it,"
said Wimar, whose show Perspektif on private television station
SCTV was suddenly halted last year, reportedly because it was
often critical of the government.
"Communication among people is improving recently. This is not
the case between people and the government," he told The Jakarta
Post during a break at the seminar on broadcasting here
yesterday. "Members of the power elite try to seal communication
off."
"I think the elite group can't stand (to communicate) because
they have so much to hide," he said. He added that the
government's fear of open communication is to blame for the
deteriorating "political culture" of the country.
"This fear of open communication is among the marks of the
decline of Indonesian society today," he said. He praised,
however, the increase of interest in political matters among the
people, saying that the development was a cause for optimism.
He pointed out that people with power tend to abuse their
positions to limit communications. But the public has been
dealing with the oppression by seeking alternative channels, such
as the Internet.
He identified a number of methods employed by the power
holders to suppress public communication, including censorship.
The power holders may defend censorship as a way to protect
"the purity of state ideology", but that rationale is outdated
and even downright naive, Wimar said.
He pointed out that censorship of free communication may in
fact be the campaign of an individual member of the powerful
elite seeking to shield some facts -- such as illegal business
deals -- from public exposure.
The other types of campaigns to suppress public communication
he mentioned were propaganda and co-optation of the mass media.
He expressed hopes for democratization and empowerment of the
press. "As the last stronghold of social values and the last
public institution to maintain sovereignty, the press has to be
democratized internally and externally," Wimar said.
Another speaker, Paul Chadwick of the Melbourne-based
Communications Law Center, said that journalists often have to
deal with many conflicts in their effort to exercise their
rights: the right to seek the truth and tell it, and the right to
independence.
"Journalists need to be independent from the government, from
media owners, from advertisers and patrons. Yet, they cannot be
entirely independent of any of these," Chadwick told the Post.
The conflicts regarding the government, for instance, stem
from the fact that the government doesn't merely make laws under
which media business operate. It is also, for many media, the
primary source of news.
"... producing products of information and opinion is not the
same as producing things such as cars ... The owners, just like
the journalists, who have particular responsibilities, are
responsible to allow journalists to be independent," Chadwick
said.
He pointed out that the public will lose confidence in the
media, as well as their interests, if the journalists were not
independent.
William Atkins, a researcher at the Department of Government
of the University of Sydney, reminded both print and broadcast
journalists of the importance of balanced, accurate and impartial
reporting.
"Journalists must never be `captured' by any political
interest groups in society," he said.
The three-day seminar, entitled Open Skies Policy : Towards an
Open Society, the Challenge of Public Broadcasting in Asia, is
being organized by the Indonesian Institute for Press Studies,
the unrecognized Alliance of Independent Journalists and the
International Federation of Journalists. The seminar is scheduled
to conclude today.(31)