Controlled media could cause mass deception

Controlled media could cause mass deception

Thang D. Nguyen, Program Coordinator, United in Diversity Forum,
Jakarta

The media has become a weapon of mass deception. This has
happened in two ways: The first is that governments have come to
dominate the media, and the second is that too much freedom has
made the media irresponsible.

The first case is quite Orwellian in that the media,
especially the state-owned media, serves as governments' obedient
mouthpieces. For one thing, this means that their news reports
are government-friendly. But this also means they cover up
scandals in which their bosses are at fault.

As an old saying has it, "never bite the hand that feeds you",
and anyone who violates this rule will face consequences: from
the loss of their job to threats, imprisonment, family harassment
and death. Because of the overwhelming power of the "thought
police", many media agencies bite the bullet and hide truthful
and objective information from the public.

There has, however, been one exception recently: the BBC's
reporting, much of which was done by the brave, controversial
Andrew Gilligan, accusing Downing Street of "sexing up" the Iraq
dossier that led the UK into the U.S. war on Iraq. In January,
the BBC's ex-chairman Gavyn Davies and ex-director general Greg
Dyke quit in defense of the corporation's editorial independence.

Before announcing his resignation, Dyke sent an e-mail to the
BBC staff in which he wrote: "... the management of the BBC was
heavily criticized [for the Gilligan reports]. We need closure to
protect the future of the BBC, not for you or me but for the
benefit of everyone out there. Throughout this affair my sole aim
as director general of the BBC has been to defend our editorial
independence and to act in the public interest."

It is a shame that Dyke resigned; it is Prime Minister Tony
Blair who should have resigned. It is also a shame that this is
happening to the BBC, which has worldwide respect for its
independent news services. It sounds paradoxical, but the reports
on the Iraq war from the government-funded BBC were much more
objective and truthful than the reports from the privately owned
CNN or -- much worse -- Fox News.

The second case in which the media becomes a weapon of mass
deception is when it fails to perform responsible journalism.
What is responsible journalism? It is the responsibility of media
professionals -- whether they be reporters, correspondents,
producers, editors, managing directors, chief executive officers
or chairmen -- to ensure that the public receives accurate facts
and objective information in a timely manner.

But more than that, responsible journalism means that media
professionals are responsible for detecting, investigating and
reporting news that has life-and-death impacts on the lives of
people -- hence the term investigative journalism.

Often associated with Enron-like cases, Lewinsky-like affairs
or Watergate-like scandals, investigative journalism seems to be
disappearing, and some journalists have become irresponsible.

Under totalitarian, Communist or other undemocratic societies
in which the media is state-controlled or publicly funded, it
might be understandable that, as much as journalists want to
investigate and report truthful stories to the public, they
cannot for fear that they or their families will be endangered by
either the state, influential businesspeople or other powers that
be.

Sadly, however, irresponsible journalism is happening in
democratic countries in which the media enjoys not only the right
to report freely but also to investigate into and blow up
scandals.

A case in point is the cover-up of and the much belated
reports on the bird flu that has caused deaths and led to the
slaughter of millions of chickens throughout Asia. The outbreak
first revealed itself as early as last August when thousands of
chickens started to die in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, and
has since spread to Cambodia, China, Japan, Laos, Pakistan, South
Korea and now the U.S.

The Thai public was uninformed of this epidemic until the
government ordered a cull of infected chickens roughly two months
after thousands of Thai chickens had already died of the flu.

Likewise, the Indonesian public was kept in the dark until the
end of last month when the news was no longer concealable. The
Indonesian government then went public with the bad news and
ordered a mass cull of its chickens, after citing inadequate
funds and insisting that culling would not be effective and doing
it "would certainly reduce (its) poultry population drastically".

Where was the media all this time? In Thailand, the theory is
that the media is quite scared of the Thaksin government, which
is influenced by powerful businesses such as feed producer
Charoen Pokphand Group (CP Group). But where does that leave the
Indonesian media, which since the end of the Soeharto era has
gotten quite a lot of freedom of the press -- if not too much?

If the media joins governments and their intelligence agencies
in failing -- intentionally or otherwise -- to provide the public
with timely, accurate and truthful information, who else can we
turn to?

When the media acts as governments' tools of deception or are
irresponsible, they are as dangerous as weapons of mass
destruction.

These are personal views and do not necessarily represent the
views of the United in Diversity Forum.