Media distortion hurts Indonesia's image

Media distortion hurts Indonesia's image

Vincent Lingga, The Jakarta Post, Hong Kong

Indonesian officials, businessmen and analysts attending the
three-day East Asian Economic Summit appeared uncomfortable and
occasionally frustrated about the negative image that had been
projected about their country to the hundreds of participants who
had come from around the world.

The anti-American street demonstrations, emotional outbursts
against the U.S., staged by a few hundred people in Jakarta and
several other cities over the last two months, seemed to have
earned Indonesia the image of a country controlled by millions of
radical Muslims.

The steady stream of stories and prominent displays of photos
about demonstrators with slogans bashing the U.S. and its allies
for the attacks on alleged terrorists in Afghanistan and
television interviews with people registering as volunteers to
fight in Afghanistan were presented as if the world's largest
Muslim-populated country was about to erupt.

"I painstakingly explained to them that the group, which
threatened to use violence to express their support of and
solidarity with Muslims in Afghanistan, was negligible compared
to the hundreds of millions of moderate Indonesians," Minister of
Trade and Industry Rini Soewandi told The Jakarta Post after
giving an interview with CNN.

Rini conceded that even though the voice of reason now
prevailed among public opinion, the damage had already been done
to Indonesia's image.

She confirmed that a number of importers overseas had
canceled orders from Indonesia due to security concerns.

"Scenes of people demonstrating on the streets are normal,
especially in democratic countries. But when such scenes are
disproportionally displayed in photos and repeatedly zoomed in on
television screens, the resulting perception is misleading," she
added.

Did the Indonesian and foreign mass media go over the top in
their coverage of anti-American sentiment, especially between
late September and the first two weeks of October?

"Yes, I think many newspapers and television news broadcasters
went overboard in the treatment of those events," said Jusuf
Wanandi, Chairman of the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and
International Studies.

Jusuf, who was a panelist at two sessions during the summit,
went into great length to assert that what people overseas read
in newspapers or saw on television did by no means represent
Indonesian public opinion.

"But the way the mass media treated the events created the
impression that radicals sometimes control public opinion in
Indonesia," he said.

Garment businessman M.Manimaren also seemed frustrated about
the negative image his buyers had of Indonesia.

"I didn't come here primarily to attend the economic summit
but to meet my buyers as they did not want to come to Indonesia.
"I have to continue our exports, otherwise I would not be able to
pay my employees. Therefore, I have to go wherever my buyers are
willing to meet," Manimaren said.

Some foreign analysts, who are based in Jakarta or regularly
visit Indonesia, said their perception of Indonesia was not in
anyway distorted by the overblown stories about the recent wave
of anti-American demonstrations.

But they admitted that people overseas, notably those who had
never visited Indonesia, could have been scared by what they had
read in the print media and saw on television.

They said Indonesia had inherited problems, which it is now
encountering in its transition to full democracy and local
autonomy, from more than three decades of authoritarian and
centralized government, the nation was not fanatically anti-
American.

Arwin Rasyid, president of Jakarta-based Bank Danamon,
acknowledged that despite the myriad of problems Indonesia is
facing, people need uplifting stories, news about kindness,
compassion amid the torrent of bad news.

Rasyid was also disturbed about how some of the mass media in
Jakarta tended to disproportionately emphasize the bad aspects of
events.

"Since you have already heard all the bad news, negative
things from the mass media, I will present to you the positive
developments currently going on in the banking industry," he said
at an Indonesian session during the summit.

Speaking as a panelist at the session, Rasyid cited the
restructuring efforts that had been implemented in the banking
industry and the progress already made in the process of
rebuilding a sound financial system in Indonesia.

He added that, despite the seemingly gloomy outlook of the
economy, one should not live in constant worry, waiting for the
next series of bad news.

Does Rasyid expect too much, given the liberal mood of
Indonesia's press, the preoccupation of many print media with
expanding circulation and the fierce competition among TV
broadcasting stations for a higher rating?

That depends on the mass media themselves. But like the
Americans who are now at war against terrorism, Indonesia seems
in need of another kind of fight, which is a campaign against
pessimism.