More press freedom makes us healthier: says VP Kalla
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The press freedom that the nation has enjoyed in the last seven years, in addition to advanced information technology, has helped in the corruption eradication drive in the country, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Friday.
"Without a free and fast press, surely our problems of corruption would be worse," Kalla said in a speech during the opening ceremony of the first Indonesian Press Expo at the Jakarta Convention Center in Senayan.
"The government is grateful about these developments, although the press has been known to show government officials wearing nothing but their underwear," he joked.
He went on to add that government officials must now always be in "healthy" shape, because they would always be under the press microscope.
Thus, a free press, in a way has forced everyone to live a "healthier" life, although, of course, responsibility and ethics have to be there for the sake of national interests, he said.
Earlier in the ceremony, the Association of Newspaper Publishers (SPS) chairman Jakob Oetama said that the print media industry had the television industry as its major challenge in developing reading habits in the country.
Jakob also stressed SPS' commitment in nurturing the freedom of the press through the right to reply and consultation with the Press Council before going to court.
SPS celebrated its 59th anniversary this month by holding the first Indonesian Press Expo, which started on Friday and will wind up on Sunday, with 172 media brand names from 40 groups, the event chairman Christian Tooy said during the opening ceremony.
Organizers expect to host up 20,000 visitors during the three- day event. As of Friday afternoon, organizers had recorded up to 6,000 visitors, mostly representatives from media partner firms.
The expo aims to become a forum for publishers to promote opportunities in the print media industry, which observers say has the potential to grow by up to four times larger than its current size.
The World Bank estimated that the sales of newspapers in the country for the 2000-2001 period was around five million copies daily, only a quarter of the ideal circulation of around 20 million copies.
Meanwhile, Kalla expressed concerns over the low readership in the country, although he said television should not be blamed for the discouraging development.
"People also watch television in Japan, Singapore and the United States, but they still have high readership, but alas we do not. So, there must be something else that is to blame, other than television," he said.
He proposed a stricter education system, in which elementary and junior high school students would be encouraged to read more books, as a way to induce reading habits from an early age.