Media center caters to 'hungry' journalists

Media center caters to 'hungry' journalists

By Lenah Susianty & T. Sima Gunawan

JAKARTA (JP): "Do they have telephone lines in Indonesia?"
asked an American media establishment planning to send its
reporter to cover the APEC conference which President Bill
Clinton will attend.

To one's ears, this could amount to an insult.

But to officials involved in the preparations for the APEC
meeting, this question reflected the need for the host nation to
provide all the facilities needed for visiting journalists to
send or relay their stories back home.

The host committee has turned the 2,500-square meter hall of
the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC), where the APEC ministerial
conference will be held, into the APEC international media
center.

A total of 216 booths in the JCC's exhibition hall have been
leased out, intended to give journalists some peace and quiet,
and privacy, in preparing their stories.

A quick stroll along the corridors of the media center will
give you an assortment of press publication names, some familiar,
Reuters, VOA, Straits Times, and some not so familiar, Radio
Chilena, Chile National TV, El Diario, La Segunda News, Burson
Marstelle and Wire Agency.

A smaller, but just as fully equipped media center has also
been established in the compound of the Bogor Presidential
Palace, where the APEC leaders will go for their retreat on
Tuesday.

The booths and communications facilities provided at the media
center come at a price. There are no freebies, but then to most
journalists what matters the most is that they can send or relay
their stories home. Cost comes second.

The rent for a three by three meter square booth is US$90 a
day in the JCC. The booths at the Bogor palace, which will only
be used on Tuesday, cost $150 each.

Five hundreds PCs are available from $82 to $123 a day, while
printers costs up to $160 per day.

Telephone and facsimile lines can be installed in the booths
for between $192 to $282 each. The committee also offers 1,500
cellular phones for over $600 per line for 14 days.

The State-owned telecommunications company PT Telkom has
installed 1,500 telephone lines in the JCC and 800 lines in
Bogor.

TV van

For broadcasters, a TV van equipped with three color cameras,
a video and audio mixer, a video tape recorder and a video and
audio monitoring system can be rented for $5,500 for the first
seven hour block and $1,500 for each additional hour.

In addition, cameras, zoom lens, lighting and transmission
facilities are also available for rent.

Jimmy R. Vilanueva of PT Telkom said 250 staff members are
deployed to handle the telecommunication services for the press
in both centers. "We have 90 people working in our center here
(in JCC), divided into three shifts, round the clock."

Telkom president Setyanto Santosa said his aim is to please
the press. "If the foreign press can communicate with home, they
will know that we have modern and reliable equipment. This is our
challenge," Santosa said.

Still, the large television networks have come with their own
huge and heavy equipment.

British-based Reuters is renting eight booths in the JCC, a
dark room, and a space outside the JCC building where it has
erected its own satellite dish. The same one they used when
sending their Gulf War stories from the Arab desert over three
years ago. More recently, the equipment helped Reuters relay the
Rwandan war in the heart of Africa to the rest of the world.

John Owen-Davies, Reuters Jakarta bureau chief, said he was
satisfied with the APEC committee's service, as everything was
completed on time. "When you talk about TV, you have to be well
prepared," he said.

No smoking

The main, open, press working area is located in the plenary
hall, where telephone and facsimile outlets can be activated on
request. Journalists who do not have first hand access to cover
the leaders meeting on Tuesday will be able to follow the event
from two giant video walls in the plenary hall, which will
broadcast the meeting from Bogor live.

Because of space constraints, only 500 journalists will be
permitted to cover the leaders meeting in Bogor.

Smoking in JCC's plenary hall is not allowed.

"There is no excuse," Ishadi SK, head of the Press and News
Agency Bureau of the APEC committee, said. "If you want to smoke
you can go to the lobby."

Ishadi, a former director of the state television station
TVRI, said the job as a committee member has put him under heavy
stress but he was glad to have the honor to carry out such an
important duty.

"It's good that everybody lends a hand," he said.

The Institute of Management Study and Development is one of
the private agencies taking part in the planning, managing and
running of the international press centers.