More press freedom makes us healthier: says VP Kalla
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.