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.