Paving the road of press freedom

Atmakusumah has been known for his dedication to Indonesian journalism for more than three decades, and most recently for his latest role as the chairman of the Press Council during the past three years. With his reappointment to the council membership this month, Atmakusumah shared his views with The Jakarta Post Fabiola Desy Unidjaja on how the council could improve journalism in the country.

Question: What will be the greatest challenges for the new Press Council?

Answer: There are several unfinished duties that the new members should deal with, especially on the establishment of an expert team, with respect to the new freedom of the press, to support the council in observing media content.

We have to admit that there are a lot of newly established media that have yet to meet our standards with their publications and many abuse the freedom of press. The council should establish a supervisory team to check the content of each publication.

Our restraint to establishing such a team was the lack of funds, and the new members should find a way to raise funds not just from the government but also from the media companies that will benefit from the feedback to improve their performance.

Q: What will the team will focus on?

A: The team will focus on media content and the social welfare of their workers, including journalists.

Although, it is not one of the Press Council's responsibilities to look into the industrial relations between journalists and media companies, we do have a moral obligation to do so.

There are many companies that do not pay attention to their journalists's welfare, though this is a firm's internal matters, the council should support it because it will affect the media's professionalism.

Q: How many complaints has the council received?

A: We have received around 300 complaints, mostly from the public, over the last three years.

The council's new members should have commitment and provide sufficient time in handling complaints, because once we receive the complaints we have to take the time to hear from both sides.

Although most of the cases can be solved via written correspondence, sometimes they require us to summon the bickering parties to handle it.

(In his accountability report at the end of his term, Atmakusumah stated that the council handled 296 complaints from April 2000 to December 2002. Some 151 of the cases asked the media to make clarification or to publish news sources' clarification in exercising their answer rights.)

Q: Do the new members have other things to pursue?

A: Of course, we have another issue of ensuring the safety of journalists while doing their jobs, since violence against journalists is a frequent occurrence in this country.

The past Press Council had submitted a draft Memorandum of Understanding with the National Police to get assurances that the media community would be protected while they are on duty.

However, as of now we have not receive any response from the police, maybe because they find it difficult to make a promise like that.

For example, the police find it hard to protect journalists covering risky events such as mass rallies, riots, bloody clashes or other chaotic situations.

Despite the difficulties, we will continue to push for such an assurance because journalists will be able to gather the best information and present it to the public if they feel safe in doing their job.

(In the accountability report, Atmakusumah stated that there were 56 cases of violence against journalists in the past three years.)

Q: From the legal aspects, is it possible to get such assurance?

A: Although our country's freedom of the press is something that we should continue to fight for, there are a few things that need changing to support and maintain that.

Currently, the Criminal Code still has around 35 articles dealing with press violations that threaten up to seven years imprisonment against journalists violating it.

In a democratic country, one should not be punished for expressing his/her opinion and those laws should be scrapped. People should have the freedom to say what they want to say.

It will be very difficult to speak the truth if we are always haunted by the possibility of going to jail because of our work.

In the future we have to ensure that no journalists will go to jail for their work, let all cases related to the press be civil cases, not criminal ones.