Press charged with disinformation

Press charged with disinformation

By Harry Bhaskara

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian press retains many of its less-
than-satisfactory qualities three years into the so-called reform
era. Pundits assessing press performance said in a recent
discussion here that they found that the "culture of lies",
official statements, disinformation and biased reporting remained
pervasive.

Through a pliant and unprofessional media, political actors
readily find partners willing to serve their often distasteful
interests at the cost of the public interest.

The military, for example, was adamant to impose a military
emergency status in troubled provinces like Aceh and Maluku
during the early months of President Abdurrahman Wahid's
government. But now they are opposed even to civil emergency.

"This about-face is reflective of the excellent disinformation
campaign waged by the military," said senior journalist Aristides
Katoppo, one of the three speakers in the discussion.
By "excellent" Aristides meant the military's ability to create a
public image that it was opposed to the declaration of a state of
emergency, while in fact it was to the contrary.

"Even in the absence of a state of emergency the military was
bold enough to stage a defiant stance in front of the
presidential palace," Aristides said, referring to the 7,000
troops gathered near the palace earlier this month following the
firing of the national police chief.

He said the current rift between Abdurrahman and his Vice
President Megawati Soekarnoputri was the result of a skillful
disinformation campaign worked out by remnants of the New Order
forces adept in "parroting" the rhetoric of the pro-reform camp.

"It is Soehartoism without a Soeharto situation," he said.

Plans are afoot, Aristides said, that as soon as Megawati
becomes president she will be dethroned in the way Benazir Bhutto
of Pakistan was toppled.

"These are circumstances where 'thief cries thief'. The
perpetrators, who are the actual thieves, wash their hands by
first calling the other camps thieves," he said, referring to the
forthcoming "Benazir operation". The question is whether or not
the public are able to recognize who the real "thieves" are, he
said.

Aristides' description only indicates the extent of
disinformation in a country devastated by multiple crises. "I am
sad to learn that such type of conflict can occur during peace
time," he said.

Andre Hardjana, a communications expert from the University of
Indonesia, had earlier said that disinformation clashes only
normally occurred during times of war.

"We have lived so long in a culture of lies that we are no
longer able to distinguish between truthful news and false news,"
Aristides said, referring to the 30-year rule of Soeharto that
abruptly came to an end in 1998.

The discussion on disinformation and biased reporting took
place at Taman Ismail Marzuki on June 13 and was organized by a
group called Get-together for Democracy, a polling and media
studies institute.

An activist for the urban poor, Wardah Hafidz, said the press
and the mass media in general were guilty of presenting views
based on orders by unscrupulous parties. "Hence the saying, there
is no demonstration without the mass media," she said.

On the other hand, fierce business competition among the mass
media has often pushed public interests to the sidelines, she
said. "The mass media has also become a tool for money
laundering. Owners of illicit money have acquired new newspapers
or television stations," she said.

Wardah, a sociologist, also said the system in which the media
operated was deeply embedded in feudal culture.

"The voice from the palace, statements from ministers dominate
the news. Very seldom are the common people heard except when
they are dissenting against the government or are beaten black
and blue in bloodied rallies and riots," she said.

The mass media see things mostly in the same way the
government looks at things, she said.

"They regard the common people as an uneducated lot,
dismissing their protest rallies as the work of political
engineering.

"If an NGO gets a donation, the mass media often say that it
is exploitation of the poor. But they heap the government with
praise when it receives loans from foreign countries.

"When the loan is drained by corruption, the mass media report
that it is committed by 'certain parties'," she said.

Wardah said that the press was still guilty of self-censorship
and that it needed to set up a new agenda of reporting away from
palace, to the reporting of people on the street.

"The news agenda should be set by the people, like they do in
public hearings in the United States, it should cover a wide
variety of issues including corruption, health, consumer
protection," she said.

Hardjana emphasized that the press "must stop selling news
only for the powerful." Hardjana defined disinformation as
treason against information.

Information is supposed to remove uncertainties, while
disinformation, he added, "prolong (uncertainties) as we can see
around us today."

Aristides said that as journalists, "we are not adequately
trained to deter disinformation."

Citing the recent media centennial celebration of founding
president Sukarno's birthday, he said, the press could have
studied newspaper reports prior to the Sept. 30 1965 coup attempt
and how the reports presented the extent of the war of
disinformation war with the involvement of foreign forces.

"We learned from that period that disinformation was produced
by wrapping true information with an overwhelmingly amount of
false information. It is a bit like honey-coated poison," he
said.

He cited the issue of the Council of Generals -- said to have
planned the seizure of power in the early 1960s -- that came to
the fore during the extraordinary military tribunal following the
1965 putsch.

When the tribunal was over, he said, the issue was turned
upside down with the government saying that the council was
responsible for the promotion of the ranks of generals.

Disinformation can also be made through the Internet or
through an agency such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
Aristides said.

The issue of accountability that has formed the basis of the
IMF's repeated refusal of granting the much needed US$400 million
aid was turned into the issue of the independence of Bank
Indonesia, he said.

"Why the fuss over the central bank's independence?" he said,
adding that the bank's laws were prepared by German experts.

The press, Aristides said, "expanded during the New Order
period and found it awkward to operate in an atmosphere of
freedom." He added that the press was too important to be left to
the media alone or to the government.

"The press strives to defend the interests of the public but
it never consults the public. It may have conducted a polling on
various issues but never on themselves," Aristides said.

The writer is a journalist with The Jakarta Post.