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)