Does press freedom make a more professional media?

Harry Bhaskara, Staff Writer, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

One hallmark of the New Order government, which ruled Indonesia from 1967 to 1998, was to deprive its people of information. Although the regime is now gone, the bad habit lives on.

In 2001, this much was evident when then-president Abdurrahman Wahid banned foreign journalists from visiting Indonesia's main trouble spots -- Maluku, Aceh and Irian Jaya. The ban, which shocked the public, was ordered in January.

Many remember that Abdurrahman vowed in May of 2000 to defend press freedom at a conference organized by UNESCO and the Southeast Asia Press Alliance.

It is amazing to witness how quickly a person can change -- or, more accurately, how quickly power can change a person.

Abdurrahman stunned the nation when he dismantled the Ministry of Information in 1999, a bureaucracy that banned many publications during the Soeharto years.

Certainly, the government is not alone in shouldering the blame. The people and the media were also caught up in a tidal wave of political change that caught them all by surprise and elicited an awkward response.

So it was that, when the media failed to live up to people's expectations, they were both to blame.

Thirty years of a repressive rule under Soeharto has spawned a chorus of media voices subservient to their rulers. A good media turned out to be the one parroting whatever the government says. Simply ridding themselves of the habit of generating news based on talk is difficult.

The often-cited complaints have been that press reporting had no focus. True, the press can report on anything. But its orientation and standpoint are never clear -- with reporting that is biased, misleading and, at its worst, malicious and libelous.

Its news judgment is often questionable. It has a tendency to follow the drumbeat of others. On many counts, the press appears to have abused its new freedoms.

In short, its performance throughout 2001 was disappointing.

The Pantau media-watch magazine in its June issue noted that television stations used a lot of air time reporting on Abdurrahman supporters -- including those engaged in martial arts training -- prior to their nationwide gathering on April 29 in Jakarta. Needless to say, the footage created a strong image that Abdurrahman supporters were a vicious lot.

But when their gathering turned out to be peaceful, some stations neglected to report on it.

Government often has felt the brunt of bad press. It complained that reportage in troubled areas like Aceh, Maluku and Papua was biased in favor of the rebels.

Amid heightened political infighting, Abdurrahman announced on May 10 that he would set up a press monitoring team to record negative reporting about him. The plan, however, never materialized.

Abdurrahman said the Indonesian press had committed the sin of character assassination. The public, he said, was disinclined to read newspapers or watch television because the reports were "full of lies."

Last year, as in the near past, the media had faced numerous challenges -- from questions of survival under the four-year-old financial crisis, to political uncertainties.

In August, a controversial body, the Ministry of Communications and Information, came into being under Syamsul Muarif, a politician from Golkar, a party with closest links to the old guard politicians.

"I am charged to ensure press freedom, and I will never close a press publication," the new minister said.

A senior journalist remembered that the former minister of information, Harmoko, made the same vow when he was appointed minister under Soeharto regime. Harmoko lied. Will Syamsul do so too?

The official version was that the ministry was going to streamline information flow throughout government ministries. It would not interfere with the content of a media.

Some of those challenges were carryovers from past habits, like news sources who denied what they have said on the record, or the government's reluctance to abandon its security approach.

Intelligence chief A.M. Hendropriyono's denial in November that he did not say the al-Qaeda network was in Poso, a statement attributed to him earlier, was typical of the New Order government officials.

A strong warning issued against two television stations and three local papers in Ternate on March 20, 2001 by the North Maluku governor was an example of a security approach.

Gov. Abdul Muhyi Effendie said the warning was based on his responsibility to implement a state of civil emergency in the territory riven by prolonged conflict between Christians and Muslims.

The warning to TPI, RCTI television stations and Ternate Pos, Fokus and Mimbar Kieraha print media sparked widespread criticism, particularly from NGOs and the media. The latter alleged that the warning was issued following a rift between the government and the press.

In his explanation to the Press Council, Effendie confessed that he occasionally slipped money to journalists when he met them. "But it is not always the case -- perhaps when I failed to give them money, they became cross and tried to attack me," he said.

In terms of professionalism, he said he never knew of Indonesian reporters traveling from Ternate to Tobelo and Loloda, the hot spots of the conflict.

"No one dares to go there, except foreign journalists," he said in an interview with Etika magazine.

Indeed, peril lurks from behind many more corners.

Legal hurdles have been one of them. Atmakusumah Astraatmadja, chairman of the press council, said that the press was still being haunted by at least 42 clauses in both the criminal code and acts enforceable under states of emergency.

Apart from sectarian conflicts, the media had been challenged by a new form of censorship via communal pressure. This kind of pressure came from people who preferred to take the law into their own hands.

Ultimately, both the government and the people will have to learn -- and, more importantly, accept -- that the media will not always please them.

These challenges have kept the media busy with themselves. It is ill at ease in coping with the expectations of communities basked in political euphoria.

On the other hand, the media has to conquer a steep learning curve to live with its newly found freedom -- albeit in a country that is deep in crisis.

The press corps should acknowledge that there are those among them who have failed to live up to journalistic ethics -- through biased reporting, and a low level of professionalism.