Reflection on Press Day

Reflection on Press Day

In January, when President Soeharto in his state budget speech
before the House of Representatives lashed out at the press for
reporting that allegedly stirred up trouble, many media
executives believed that something was in the air.
Understandably, the media have been anxious to know what the
president would have to say during the commemoration of National
Press Day, Feb. 12.

True enough at a ceremony marking National Press Day
yesterday, President Soeharto warned the media not to adopt
foreign press values in covering domestic events and thereby
contributing to social unrest. The president said unsuitable
foreign values appeared to be on the rise in the national press.
These values, according to President Soeharto, are like glasses
which color our perception of ourselves and prompt a
dramatization of events.

Reminding the press that it was "not an extraordinary
institution which must receive special treatment" and which "does
not have a constitutional authority", the President called on the
press to filter out values unsuitable to Indonesia.

What prompted President Soeharto to issue such a warning is
clear enough. The unprecedented series of riots and social unrest
in the past several months have led many to believe that if the
unrest remains unchecked the nation will be in grave danger of
disintegration. And the media has been accused of helping to fan
the unrest. In recent weeks numerous officials have joined the
chorus and blamed the press for allegedly "dramatizing" the
recent riots. Some officials even hinted that the press stirred
up trouble with its "unfair" and "unbalanced" reporting.

While the allegation is debatable, the wisest thing to do is
heed the warning. In truth, it is good and timely for the media
to reflect on itself on National Press Day. In the last two
decades the Indonesian press has entered the age of
industrialization and one of the impacts of the free market
system is that inroads have been made into our psyche by
"western" values -- such as the ushering in of free market
competition. The business community in particular, including the
media, cannot escape these new values. In order to beat their
competitors, some media publications have gone as far as to use
"unconventional" tactics, such us digging into a story deeper and
always trying to be exclusive, something which is natural for the
press but apparently is not acceptable to the authorities.

One has to acknowledge that sometimes the press also gets
carried away in its political reporting. Given the tight control
on political reporting, some media publications have also shown a
tendency to report more on crime which is considered a lot safer.
Our press, in short, still has quite a number of shortcomings.

Although the national press continues to progress and develop,
many publications have ignored the education and training of
their reporters. As a result, skilled reporters are scarce, which
affects the quality of the press in general. And this has led to
complaints on the quality of the media.

Here, perhaps, lies the root of the problem. There are only
two institutions in this country which professionally undertake
the teaching and training of would-be journalists. Between them,
they turn out fewer than two dozen professional journalists a
year. In a country where there are more than seven thousand
journalists, two institutions is an unbelievably small number.

Without proper education and training, the quality of
Indonesian journalists and the media will always remain
questionable. Therefore, special attention should be given to
improving the quality of the Indonesian journalist. As the age of
a global open market draws near and an assault by the foreign
media looms, a program to train better qualified journalists is
imperative.

Although the quality of the Indonesian press may be
unsatisfactory, one thing is clear: existing in the shadow of the
constant danger of being axed, the media knows its limits. It
also accepts the burden of responsibility that they have to bear
as members of a free and responsible press. And part of this
responsibility is the preservation of national unity. Nobody
wants to see this nation disintegrate, and no one wants to see
bloodshed or riots in this country either.