Financial security may raise impartial media

Financial security may raise impartial media

Ardimas Sasdi, Staff Writer, The Jakarta Post,
Berkeley, California, ajambak@uclink.berkeley.edu

One perennial problem, which often provokes cynicism and
sarcasm from the reading and viewing public toward the Indonesian
media, is the violations of ethics by unscrupulous or "rotten"
reporters who receive benefits from news sources for their
reports.

This old, but nagging problem has been going on for years, and
it resurfaced again on Monday at the National Convention of Mass
Media in Jakarta, an event organized by the press community to
mark National Press Day, which falls on Feb. 9.

"There is a rotten egg in your basket. The press community
must admit it and need not be defensive against this charge,"
Erna Witoelar, the United Nations envoy for the Millennium
Development Goals, bluntly told participants of the convention
about the shameful acts of some reporters, who often ask for
money after interviews, ostensibly to print something favorable.

On the other hand Erna, a veteran activist of non-governmental
organizations and minister under President Wahid before she
served as the UN envoy, emphasized the key role of the press with
other elements of the reform forces in fighting for democracy and
combating endemic corruption in Indonesia. She urged the media
community to take urgent steps to get its own house in order and
regain public trust.

"Envelope journalism", a popular but derogatory term referring
to the local practice of taking and giving money between rotten
journalists and news sources after interviews, new conferences
and companies' shareholders meeting, is not a uniquely Indonesian
scourge, but a cancerous disease plaguing media in many
developing countries from Burma (Myanmar) to China in Asia and
Nigeria and Kenya in Africa.

Erna is not alone in her criticism of envelope journalism, but
other people -- especially public figures -- choose not to go
public for fear that these unscrupulous reporters will fight back
against them because they themselves are involved in abuse of
power or sexual scandals.

The rotten politicians, business people and public relations
officers who know the importance of the media as an effective
tool of image-building and promotion have long exploited these
"envelope-hungry" reporters by deliberately arranging media
events from informal talks to meetings in cafes, hotels and
tourist resorts, in order to get space with throwaway prices in
print and/or airtime on TV.

The unscrupulous journalists, who receive payments or other
types of favors from news sources, usually package information
which commonly falls into the gray area of real news and
advertisements in such a way that they resemble newsworthy
stories to many unsuspecting readers. But careful readers can
differentiate between good stories and sponsored pieces by their
content, news selection, time element and sources.

Tarman Azzam, the chairman of the Indonesian Journalists'
Association -- the largest in the country -- acknowledged that
some reporters received payments or extorted money from their
sources, but he quickly downplayed it by saying many of these
reporters work for small media, run by their owners on unsound
business principles.

Article 5 of the code of ethics for Indonesian journalists
states that journalists shall not accept bribes or any form of
reward in any way related to their journalistic duties from news
sources, and shall not abuse their profession for their personal
and/or group interests.

Media experts and activists of media watch organizations have
raised issues about envelope journalism time and again, but some
of them, apparently not knowledgeable of the media business, put
the blame solely on reporters for violations of ethics, without
querying the responsibility of the media owners and chief editors
or going further to study the root causes of the problem.

The practice of receiving envelopes by reporters from news
sources is only one type of violation of the code of ethics by
journalists. The others include junkets or free trips or picnics;
freebies (in-kind gifts given by news sources to reporters) and
other disguised bribes.

In order to maintain their image among the public, some large
media groups have drafted their own strict code of ethics, and
try hard to enforce them, but detecting such violations by
reporters in the field is not easy.

Experts on ethics and law in media explain that a code of
ethics alone cannot cover all activities, as many of them fall
into gray areas. Adherence to codes is, therefore, primarily
contingent upon each individual journalist.

But the key to the success of a plan to maintain standards of
ethics in the newsrooms remains in the hands of media owners, who
draft budgets and control distribution of expenditures. Media
owners and executives need to work together to raise the salaries
of journalists and the budgets for newsroom operations.

Prof. Conrad C. Fink in a book on Media Ethics in the Newsroom
and Beyond (1988) said the first move toward ethical, responsible
journalism must come not from the newsroom, but, rather, the
executive suite.

"There must be owner commitment to excellence, and that means
commitment of money. Good journalism isn't cheap. Owners of the
media, if they really want to promote quality reports, must
strike a balance between making profits and allocating proper
budgets for news coverage as done by big media", Fink says.

The financial condition of many Indonesian press organizations
is weak, and so they cannot pay reporters decent enough wages to
discourage them from taking "gifts". The data has shown that only
a small number of around 16,000 journalists get adequate
salaries, while others receive meager salaries. Some even get
monthly payments lower than regional minimum wages of laborers in
their areas.

Thus to solve violations of ethics and promote ethical,
responsible journalism, reporters and media owners must embark on
a collaborative effort. Reporters must shun bribes and adhere to
a code of ethics in their jobs if they want respect from the
public, while media owners must set aside some of their huge
profits to improve the standards of living of their employees.
Good journalism is not a cheap and simple matter.

The writer is a visiting scholar at the Graduate School of
Journalism of the University of California, Berkeley.