President rebukes careless media

President rebukes careless media

JAKARTA (JP): President Abdurrahman Wahid reiterated on
Wednesday his full commitment to a free press, but rebuked some
media for abusing the country's new freedom.

"We need freedom, but freedom should go hand in hand with the
ability to use it wisely," Abdurrahman said in his address to 100
Southeast Asian journalists at Bina Graha presidential office.

Abdurrahman's speech marked the opening of a conference on
freedom of the press held to commemorate World Press Freedom Day
which falls on May 3.

He said that "in the past months, we, Indonesia, have
developed a trend of investigating everything and spending our
energy on so many activities unnecessarily while forgetting the
essential things (that need) to be monitored."

Abdurrahman said that developing professionalism and ethics
must be carried out by the press themselves.

"The government has no right to decide what is good and what
is good not for the press ... it is up to the press to make those
decisions," Gus Dur, as the President is popularly called, said.

"That's why it is understandable why we abolished the
information ministry despite protests against the decision," he
added.

Gus Dur abolished the ministry days after he was elected in
October saying that the decision was part of the government's
effort to streamline and create a clean bureaucracy.

In the past, the ministry became one of the institutions most
feared by journalists and media.

Scores of newspapers and magazines were closed and hundreds of
journalists and others employed in the media lost their jobs for
not toeing the government line.

The publication of reports or articles the authorities deemed
disruptive, rebellious or subversive -- and thus "harmful to the
nation" -- was a virtual death sentence for media.

A system of mandatory licensing, which has also been abolished
by the new government, further added to the ministry's power and
opened opportunities for corruption, collusion and nepotism.
(byg)