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.