Foreign media warned to watch it on coverage
Foreign media warned to watch it on coverage
JAKARTA (JP): Governor Sutiyoso has called on the foreign
press to do the capital and its inhabitants a favor by being more
careful in reporting on the situation in Indonesia, especially
Jakarta.
Speaking in English in front of the 50 participants of the 2nd
Asian-German Editors' Forum on Monday evening, the governor
noticed that foreign news coverage on what was happening
in Jakarta generally appeared to be negative and sensationalist.
"Please take a look and directly witness the real situation in
Indonesia, particularly Jakarta, in order to be able to make
coverage clearer, more objective and more rational," the governor
told the participants at a dinner he hosted at the City Hall.
"And after that, we hope that you can inform international
society so that the widespread tarnished image of the country and
its people can be neutralized," Sutiyoso was quoted by Antara as
saying.
When asked on Tuesday to further explain his remarks, the
governor said foreign media coverage of the real situation in the
capital was badly needed to inform people overseas that Jakarta
was not as bad as they thought.
"I just asked them not to cover only the bad sides of
Jakarta," he told journalists during his routine visit to a slum
area in Kebon Melati in Central Jakarta.
He took the view that improper reports were mainly due to the
strong needs of the foreign press to mix their opinions with the
facts in reports.
"Without being able to understand the local situation
properly, they will only cause misperceptions," Sutiyoso added.
The capital's latest situation -- which is certainly not
perfect -- was not as bad as the foreign press have indicated, he
said.
Sutiyoso admitted that "such an impression emerges because of
the foreign journalists' lack of understanding of the situation
here."
The bad images in the reports have then affected the flow of
capital investment and the number of tourists in to the country,
Sutiyoso said.
Understanding
He therefore called on foreign journalists to sharpen their
understanding of the local situation since Indonesia is a great
country and a complex one.
It needed to be understood that Indonesia is a vast land of
about 17,000 islands inhabited by scores of ethnic groups and
races, as well as having many languages and over 400 local
dialects, he said.
"Each of these ethnic groups is represented in Jakarta, making
Jakarta a true melting pot of Indonesia," he said.
With an area of only 650 square kilometers, and 200,000 new-
comers entering Jakarta annually, the average density of the some
10 million population is 14,000 people per square kilometer.
"This density plus the crippling economic situation creates a
significant social gap," he added. (bsr/ylt)