Government sticks to its guns on licensing reporters

JAKARTA (JP): The government's offer to subsidize newsprint for cash-strapped newspapers and magazines apparently comes with a catch: the presence of a professional body which controls journalists by accreditation.

While newspaper editors and publishers have hardly batted an eyelid, mass communications experts said yesterday that the move was an attempt by President B.J. Habibie to curb press freedom.

Ashadi Siregar of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta said the gesture "signaled the return of a fascist spirit in the government."

"It is clearly aimed at restricting the freedom of the press," Ashadi, who heads the Institute of Research, Education and Publication, told The Jakarta Post by phone.

He said he was puzzled that the government had devised such a scheme during this era of reformation.

"Whether a journalist is professional or not should be decided by their own media institutions," he said.

Habibie first proposed the use of a licensing system for journalists as a means to promote and ensure professionalism during a meeting with newspaper publishers last week.

The secretary-general of the Association of Indonesian Journalists (PWI), Parni Hadi, who related Habibie's plan after the meeting, said the President had likened journalism to the medical profession, where a doctor must have a license to practice.

On Monday, Minister of Trade and Industry Rahardi Ramelan took Habibie's plan one step further by tying it to the government's offer to waive the 15 percent value added tax on newsprint to assist newspapers and magazines, Kompas reported yesterday.

The price of locally produced newsprint is set in dollars because it uses imported recycled newspaper as a raw material. Its price has tripled in rupiah terms in tandem with the falling value of the Indonesian currency over the past year.

With advertising revenues also plunging, most publishers have made drastic cuts to try to survive the economic crisis.

Goenawan Mohamad, the director of the Institute for Studies on the Free Flow of Information, called the government's proposal to license journalists "pathetic" and "a major set back".

"Journalists don't run private practices like doctors. They work for a newspaper, a radio station or television. Editors are responsible for the quality of journalists," Goenawan said.

"Journalism is an open profession, and people with different educational backgrounds can become journalists. It is not like doctors who must go to a medical school to qualify," he added.

Goenawan was editor of Tempo news magazine which lost its publishing license in 1994 after reporting on a row between Habibie, then state minister of research and technology, and former minister of finance Mar'ie Muhammad over the escalating cost of purchasing secondhand warships from Germany.

Tempo has now been given a new license by Habibie's government and is scheduled to reappear in the next few months.

M. Budyatna, a mass communications expert from University of Indonesia, warned that the licensing mechanism was open to government manipulation.

The agency entrusted with the accreditation could be very subjective, he said. "The government should leave market forces to determine the professionalism of journalists," he added. (byg)