JP/07/media

JP/07/media

Verdict on 'Tempo' and a lesson from it

Indonesia can't afford inaction on threat on the press
or
Tempo case a litmus test for press freedom and democracy

Ardimas Sasdi
Jakarta

Thursday's court verdict on Tempo magazine, which has been in
a long and costly legal battle with businessman Tomy Winata, will
set the tone and direction of the development of the magazine and
the Indonesian press in the future.

For the respected weekly, which is regarded as the Indonesian
equivalent of U.S.-based Time magazine for its excellent
investigative reporting, the verdict is important as it will have
a great impact on the survival of Tempo and other publications
that operate within the second largest media group in the country
after the Kompas group. Over the last two years of trials, which
also involved the magazine's sister paper, the Koran Tempo daily,
the legal costs have drained the coffers of the group as well as
the energy of their top decision-makers.

Tempo, which was closed down by Soeharto in 1994 for
publishing reports critical of his government's policies, has a
long love and hate relationship with officialdom. In the various
civil and criminal trials related to Tomy's allegations, it has
lost four of seven cases so far and has been ordered to pay the
well-connected businessman more than US$1.5 million in damages
over other reports. Those cases are still pending appeal.

In this week's verdict, the magazine faces criminal charges by
government prosecutors for defaming the private citizen and
businessman in a March 2003 article. That article, according to
the government, allegedly insinuated that Tomy, who has no
official position in the government, may have been involved in
the massive fire at a Jakarta textile market in hopes of securing
a government contract for the rebuilding work. Media experts have
said that Tempo's reports on the matter were fair and balanced.

The verdict, which is scheduled to be delivered by the court
on Sept. 16, will have ramifications far beyond Tempo's newsroom.
It could adversely impact our hard-won press freedom,
specifically, and in a broader sense, Indonesian democracy, if
the court declares Tempo guilty of criminal defamation.

The already hostile public, especially politically well-
connected figures, will be more encouraged to settle problems
with the media using the colonial-era criminal laws, instead of
using the modern 1999 Press Law, which calls for mechanisms like
the right of reply, correction and clarification to settle many
disputes.

But more damaging is that a guilty verdict will discourage the
media from carrying out their journalistic mission, and will
relegate it to being impotent like it was during the 32-year
Soeharto era. Thus the nascent democracy, which has flourished
over the past six years, will suffer, if not disappear. Soeharto
imposed strict controls on the media and exploited it for the
maintenance of his authoritarian regime.

Leo S. Batubara, a member of the Press Council, said the Tempo
trials were important because they were not an isolated case, but
part of a troubling trend over the past three years targeting the
media.

Among them, Marimutu Sinivasan, the owner of an ailing
business group, also sued Kompas daily for US$1 million, for
defamation, but the case was settled out of court.

Rakyat Merdeka was also found guilty of defamation for running
headlines and cartoons ridiculing the president, a common
journalistic practice in mature democracies like the U.S. or
England. Rakyat Merdeka's editor received a six-month suspended
prison sentence in the case, but he remains free pending an
appeal.

Critics blamed the travails affecting the media on the corrupt
judiciary, which continues to use the criminal law inherited from
the pre-1945 version of the Dutch colonial laws to try cases
involving the media instead of the 1999 Press Law. The new law
stipulates that a court trial should be a last resort.

A study done by U.S. and European academics in Eastern
European countries in 1991, which were just two years removed
from strict totalitarianism, showed that problems encountered by
the press in the former Soviet bloc were extensive.

The study concluded that the expansion of press freedom in
those countries took place during a period of a real transition,
where old laws had lost their legitimacy. The erstwhile
regulating agencies had been deprived of their power or dissolved
while new ones had not yet been promulgated or established to
take their place. In the transitional period, where the press
operated without clear laws and regulations, real news gave way
to yellow journalism and sensationalism.

Patrick H.O. Neil, a leading expert who authored the report
from that study, blamed the problems in East Europe on an
inability on the part of the societies concerned -- the public,
the politicians and the journalistic profession -- to assimilate
the newly gained freedom and to use it in ways that sustained the
establishment of democratic politics.

The attitude of the Indonesian elite was similar in that they
were less than thrilled by the new press freedom. If upset by
press reports, certain parties initially organized mobs to attack
journalists and media offices, but lately they have used the
legal system to hurt the media via whopping lawsuits. The aim is
to punish the media, not so much to defend their name and honor.

In the face of the new threat, publishers and executives have
become the defendants, and most of the complainants have hired
prominent lawyers, and have been able to back up their cases and
prove that some of the media reports were inaccurate, biased or
libelous. They also failed to respect the privacy of the news
sources. The mass media, who some say has gotten out of control
and chaotic since the beginning of the reform era, has made some
blunders due to poor standards in the newsrooms and a lack of
professionalism attributed to poor education and training of the
journalists and managers.

Drawing a lesson from the press in the Eastern European
countries, the Indonesian media has no option but to improve its
standards in the newsrooms, while journalists must be ready to
take a risk even if this means jail if they believe they are
right. Some American journalists, for example, stood by the
sacred journalistic code and chose serve out prison terms for
contempt of court rather than unveiling their sources in court.

The Tempo case is a litmus test for free press and we cannot
afford inaction. The journalistic profession, the politicians,
the government and the judiciary, must sit down together to find
solutions acceptable to all parties in order to save the media
and more importantly democracy.

The author is a staff writer for the Jakarta Post and can be
contacted at ajambak@berkeley.edu