Govt to establish public information dissemination agency

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Tired of complaining about media reports, the government has decided to establish a public information agency to put out information from its own perspective.

State Minister for Information and Telecommunications Syamsul Mu'arif said on Saturday that the planned agency would be used to disseminate information on government policies.

"Such an agency is needed to avoid public confusion because too much misleading information is provided by the media," Syamsul said on Saturday.

The agency will fall under his auspices.

He stated that information from the media could be confusing for the public, especially if it was based on inaccurate reports. Therefore, the agency should become a reliable source of information from the government for the public.

"The agency will gather all news on government policies and the public can access any information regarding the policies," the minister said.

Critics have attributed the confusion to the absence of presidential spokespersons, who are expected to convey the president's messages to the public.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri has come under fire for rarely speaking to the public to explain her government's policies. But when she was abroad, she talked a lot with Indonesian community there.

Megawati has never addressed the nation on the steps the country should take in the aftermath of the bomb attack in Bali last month except for her speech hours after the blast.

Syamsul said when the agency is already in place, he would require ministers to present their views on policies via the agency.

That way, he said, the agency could also be used by the media as a reliable source of information regarding government policies.

"Journalists could find information on government policies from the planned agency," Syamsul underlined.

He said that the agency was not meant to pool information for the public, but merely to present an alternative voice, from the government, to the public.

The country has enjoyed press freedom since the fall of former president Soeharto in 1998, with no censorship imposed on the media.

Nevertheless, media reports often irk the government, especially when the government thinks that the media has wrongly interpreted the government's actions and policies.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri has repeatedly expressed her unease with the media, saying that most Indonesian papers misinterpret her actions.

"When I say something, then the next day newspapers may quote me, but not the way I originally said it," she said during her visit to Egypt recently.

In contrast to the government's disappointment with the media, a new World Bank report described the media as the key player in economic development, including in fighting poverty.

The report cited that the free flow of information held a major role in educating people, and in the end could stimulate economic development.

In the report, the World Bank underlined that freedom of information should be facilitated, especially in developing countries around the world.