Media center at National Games struggles with updates

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Palembang

Reporting on the ongoing National Games (PON) has been a trial for some journalists, due to substandard facilities and slow-to- respond officials.

There is a media center with staff that are supposed to help journalists, but unfortunately it doesn't function as it should.

The three-story center in Jakabaring is located about six kilometers west of the city center.

The media center looks impressive, as it is equipped with some 170 computers and telephones.

Some 200 officials are on standby to assist with data access, timetables and the like.

"The center was built especially for PON," Zulkardi, the spokesman of the organizing committee said.

According to him, Agum Gumelar, chairman of the Indonesian National Sports Committee (KONI) praised the center as being better than the one in Vietnam for the SEA Games.

However, the center seems overwhelmed by its task, particularly when it comes to updating match results.

As of 10:00 p.m on Wednesday, for example, the results of a soccer competition that had been underway since Monday could not be found at PON's official website: www.pon-online.org.

Internet updates on Wednesday were even more sluggish, as the results of the day's competitions were not posted until late.

With his deadline fast approaching, a frustrated journalist from a national newspaper grumbled: "We may not publish the newspaper as no results are available."

The internet connection was down for several hours also, disrupting communication between journalists and their colleagues back in the newsroom.

In fact, media center officials were so slow to respond that journalists decided to join forces to share their own data.

"The media center has not made my work any easier," one of them said. "It's like an internet kiosk, where we just use the computer and the internet, but we can't access the information we need."

"Officials need to act quickly if they want PON to be remembered as a successful event," he added.

It might be a good idea if officials recap match results, print them, make copies of them and -- as is the usual practice for sports event -- ensure that they are easily accessible.

Many venues are not equipped with computers. Hopes of match reports being sent via e-mail from Sriwijaya Sports complex seem slim.

About half-an-hour's drive from the main media center, the complex, which hosts volleyball, basketball and swimming events, has no media facilities.

When asked about the issue, Zulkardi said the organizing committee would try to improve the media center.

"We admit that one of our problems is that we lack professional staff. Besides, the infrastructure in Palembang is not as good as that of Java. But, we will try to make optimum use of what we have, to make this PON successful," Zulkardi said.

He said that the media center had been trying to update results via radio communication and fax.

He added the committee had approached PT Telkom, in the hope that the center's internet connection would be more stable after Wednesday's disconnection incident.