People unready for a free press: Observers
JAKARTA (JP): A media observer said on Saturday Indonesians were still needed more time to adapt to a free press society.
Communication law expert Andi Muis said the media was facing the reality that there was still a gap between press ethics and those of society.
"People often say cartoons are unethical and blasphemous, while media circles insist that they are ethically acceptable and journalistically correct," Muis told The Jakarta Post by phone.
He was referring to a protest by hundreds of people on Friday in front of the Rakyat Merdeka morning daily demanding the paper apologize for a recent front page cartoon.
The cartoon, which appeared in last Tuesday's edition, depicted President Abdurrahman Wahid in front of Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri swaying together on a vine over the archipelago. Both wore Tarzan-like clothes.
Muis said the degree of understanding of press freedom differed among various classes in society.
"A cutting edge caricature, like drawing the country's leader with a bent-nose, is acceptable in advanced countries. But it may stir up controversy here," he said.
However another media observer, Alwi Dahlan, blamed the daily for neglecting press ethics.
"Indonesian media has given less attention to press ethics when publishing their stories. Press freedom is important, but ethics must be given attention.
"The media should differentiate between stories which are ethically in-line with local culture and ones which are not," Alwi, who is also former minister of information, said.
Muis, a law professor from Hasanuddin University in Makassar, South Sulawesi, suggested both the paper and the protesters should refer to their respective ethics to gauge "the ethical truth".
"The Indonesian press should refer to the presses' ethical code, while the protesters to the people's norms," he said.
Active role
Muis, however, defended the peoples' protest, saying it was part of their active involvement in controlling the media.
"People can protest the media if it considerably violates their ethics," he said.
The daily, which accused Megawati of being slow in her attempts to settle the prolonged dispute in Ambon, entitled the cartoon "Mega is only dangling like a tail."
Scores of people quickly filed complaints to the daily, labeling the cartoon "sarcastic".
The following day the paper published the complaints on its front page and also apologized.
But on Friday night, hundreds of people calling themselves sympathizers of Abdurrahman and Megawati, staged a protest in front of the paper's offices on Jl. Kebayoran Lama, South Jakarta.
Dozens of protesters staged another protest on Saturday noon, expressing the same demand.
The daily eventually published on Saturday a special column on its front page, expressing their apology to both state leaders.
Deputy managing editor of Rakyat Merdeka Kiki Iswara said the daily considered the protests as a "criticism" of his paper.
"We accept their criticism and will discuss it in our next editorial meeting," he said without elaborating.
However, he said the daily would not change its editorial policy and would remain critical of the regime.
Muis hailed the establishment of independent press watchdogs such as the Media Watch Society and the Islamic Press Watchdog Committee.
"Press watchdogs can express people's objections in moderate ways," he said, adding that they can also educate people on press freedom.
Similarly, Alwi supported the establishment of such media watchdogs.
"Media watchdogs help prevent people taking extreme measures against the media, when in their opinion, they publish offensive stories or pictures," he said.
Alwi, also a lecturer at the University of Indonesia's school of communication, said in the United States people had established various media watchdogs to control extreme freedom of the press.
"The media should, therefore, respect their ethics and also the local norms," he said.
"Media print offensive news on their front pages, but put the people's complaints in the inner pages." (asa)