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

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.