Media must play role in heading off crisis: Forum

Media must play role in heading off crisis: Forum

BANGKOK (AFP): Southeast Asia's media must play a stronger role in heading off political crises like those that have befallen Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, press advocates said on Monday.

Representatives from the three countries told a forum organized by an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) communications thinktank that the region's media was failing to act as an effective watchdog.

The saga of disgraced former Philippines president Joseph Estrada was the latest in a series of leadership disasters that the press could have helped to avert, said Luis Teodoro, a media freedom activist and editor of the Philippine Journalism Review.

The nation's press could help halt the continuing cycle of political turmoil by better informing the population, a task it had so far failed, he said.

"It is the lack of information that has led the Philippines to, and which keeps the Philippines in, its current state," Teodoro said.

"The Philippine mass media are at best doing a mediocre job of providing the information on critical public issues the citizenry needs, and at worst contributing to the dumbing down of vast numbers of the Philippine electorate."

One of the positive outcomes of the Estrada impeachment debacle was a realization among journalists that they needed to beat back corruption and be more vigilant to "move the country forward," Teodoro said.

In Indonesia, the role of the media had changed since 1999 when President Abdurrahman Wahid shut down the country's department of information, ostensibly freeing the press of government interference.

But the new-found freedom had shown that the media needed an official framework and self-discipline to be effective, said Indonesian Press Council executive director Lukas Luwarso.

"It would appear that the freedom that was so eagerly awaited and celebrated hasn't lived up to the hopes of everyday Indonesians," he said.

"On the contrary, a host of new problems plague the media, creating intricacies that have muddied already complex situations," he said.

"In the absence of real government controls, the free press is becoming chaotic. The media does not present a good prescription for societal ills," he said.

Wild reportage and sensationalism had undermined the Indonesian media's credibility, Luwarso added.

Thai Journalists Association president Kavi Chongkittavorn said the media in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand tended to ignore public opinion and instead pursued their own agendas.

"Sometimes the people on the street can understand better than the leader. That's the role of the press -- trying to reflect what is in the minds of the people on the street so that leaders can read about it."

"Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand are similar in that they are very free, and they tend to report as they please. If we're not careful, we end up backing ourselves into a corner," he said.