'Give local experts a chance to speak out'

'Give local experts a chance to speak out'

PADANG, West Sumatra (JP): A local professor criticized the
media for seeking the opinions of Jakarta-based scholars only on
national issues, neglecting local experts.

Fachri Achmad, the rector of Andalas University, called on the
electronic and print media to give local experts greater
opportunity to speak out.

"Local experts have a similar intellectual capacity to those
in Jakarta. Some of the local experts also have an overseas
education," he said.

By interviewing the same Jakarta-based experts over and over,
the media does its audience a disservice because they get only
monotonous insights.

In addition, the media might fall into the trap of either
trivializing or exaggerating issues, depending on the opinion of
the experts they interview.

"Just because they're not living in Jakarta doesn't mean local
experts don't have the knowledge to comment on national issues,"
Fachri said.

Fachri is a professor of agriculture who went national when he
loudly criticized a government project, to turn one million
hectares of peat moss land in Central Kalimantan into settlement
and crop producing areas, because of its potential
destructiveness to the environment.

Fachri said local experts were as easily accessible for
comment as those in Jakarta because of telecommunications devices
such as telephones, fax machines, handphones, and the Internet.

"There's just no reason for the media not to seek the views of
local experts," he said.

The professor said if allowed the trend of interviewing only
experts from major cities could mislead people into thinking
universities outside big cities did not produce qualified
experts.

"So give them more chance to speak out, get published, and
expand themselves. Don't let their knowledge get rusty in the
college, left unknown to the greater society," he said. (32/08)