Make way! The int'l media circus has come to town

By Lenah Susianty & T. Sima Gunawan

JAKARTA (JP): The international media circus has come to town.

As the Indonesian saying goes, where there is sugar there are ants; and where the news is big, there are bound to be journalists. Lots of them.

The APEC conference now underway has drawn well over 1,000 foreign journalists into Indonesia, some coming as part of the entourage of their leaders.

More than 100 members of the White House press corps, for example, will be coming with U.S. President Bill Clinton when he arrives in Jakarta tomorrow for the APEC leadership meeting. Other leaders will also be coming with their own journalists.

Hundreds of others have made their own way to Indonesia to cover the preliminary APEC senior officials meeting and the ministerial meeting which finishes today.

The main drawing card however remains the gathering of the 18 APEC leaders in Indonesia for their "retreat" in Bogor just outside Jakarta scheduled for Tuesday.

The presence of President Clinton, Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama and Chinese President Jiang Zemin on the same card should be sufficient reason for the major international media establishments to send their representatives to Indonesia.

Add to this the other 15 APEC leaders, whose own press will surely be interested in seeing that their presidents or prime ministers stand along side the leaders of the world's most powerful countries.

Besides attending the Bogor meeting on Tuesday, the leaders will also be conducting bilateral meetings on Monday.

Clinton, Jiang and South Korean President Kim Young-sam are also combining their APEC attendance with an official visit to Indonesia.

The host organizers expect that by the time they all arrive, there could be as many as 2,000 foreign journalists converging in Indonesia. They will be joined by about 1,500 accredited local journalists to cover APEC.

Thank God for the presence of the major international news agencies, who serve thousands of newspapers and televisions across the globe. If not for them, the number of journalists might be even larger.

Largest

Reuters, the London-based international news agency now runs television news as well. Of those who have come to Jakarta, Reuters has one of the largest operations, evidenced by the space they have taken at the International Media Center located in the Jakarta Convention Center.

Reuters plans to deploy around 40 broadcast, print and photo journalists from its bureaus in Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, Britain, Singapore, Bangkok, Malaysia and Thailand.

"It's news. We'll get Clinton, the meeting, the bilateral talks," Reuters Jakarta bureau chief John Owen-Davies said.

Associated Press has also sent its television and print media journalists. "There are seven reporters of AP television assigned to cover this international event," said Gavin Hill of the APTV.

Paris-based Agence France Press (AFP) has brought six journalists from its Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong bureaus, plus its Indonesia bureau's reporters.

The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), although not coming from an APEC member country, will also cater to both its radio and television services.

Alan Freeman of Canada's The Globe and Mail daily, said some 25 Canadian journalists will come to Indonesia, including those who will come with Prime Minister Joseph-Jacques Jean Chretien.

Sato Masahiro from the Japanese Embassy said that about 270 journalists would cover the event, including some top names in Japanese journalism. "Chikushi Tetsuya from the Tokyo Broadcasting Station (TBS), Kimura Taro from Fuji TV, and Sakurai Ryoko from Nippon TV (NTV) are quite popular in our country and they are among those who are coming," Masahiro said.

Anxious

Surprisingly however, most of the Japanese journalists are having their expenses paid for by their government. The Japanese government has also set up a media center for its own journalists at the ballroom of the Sahid Jaya Hotel.

"The government is very anxious about the media," an embassy staff member told The Jakarta Post, explaining why it was necessary for Japan to have its own media center.

Taiwan and South Korea have also established their own press centers in the Borobudur Inter-continental Hotel's Sumatra Room and in the Bali Room of Hotel Indonesia.

It is true that very often the traveling journalists are used by their government leaders to further their political interests at home. Clinton, for example, who is arriving badly bruised after an election routing by the Republicans, will want to make a good showing here for voters back home.

Coverage of the U.S. president leaning hard on the Japanese to address their budget deficit or on the Chinese and Indonesians over human rights concerns will certainly go down well at home.

No ban

The host government, which has been wary in the past about the behavior of some foreign reporters, says there is no ban against foreign journalists wanting to cover the APEC gathering.

Some reporters, whose articles in the past have offended the government, will also be here. They include senior Australian journalist David Jenkins and Allan Nairn and Amy Goodman, both American-based journalists.

Officials privately said that banning them would simply generate even more unfavorable publicity. Restricting their movement too would also be bad publicity.

The Indonesian government has also emphasized that foreign journalists are free to travel to any part of Indonesia, including East Timor.

Are they not afraid of the international media, often known for their cruelty and lack of compassion in exposing stories or scandals?

"They have written about everything that is bad in Indonesia. They must've run out of fresh material by now," said one Indonesian official, pointing out that most of the recent negative articles about Indonesia have been rehashed over and over from old materials.

Overall, the convergence of thousands of foreign journalists will be positive, good publicity for an Indonesia now taking on an even greater profile in international relations.

Besides chairing APEC, President Soeharto is now the leader of the 111-nation Non-Aligned Movement. Beginning in January, Indonesia will join the world's elite club -- the UN Security Council -- for the next two years.