Susilo needs the press more than his predecessors

Susilo needs the press more than his predecessors

Ardimas Sasdi, Jakarta

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's pledge on National Press
Day in Pekanbaru, Riau, on Feb. 9 not to curb press freedom
deserves praise. The promise, if honored, will endear him to a
press that he needs to drum up highly necessary public support at
this juncture of his rule.

But time will tell whether his statement was the sincere
gesture of a statesman or just the political gimmick of a cunning
leader.

I wrote a piece in The Jakarta Post two weeks ago urging the
press to put its house in order. The call was an expression of my
concern about the fragility of the press in the face of such
issues as mob attacks on journalists and media offices, expensive
lawsuits and other troubling trends in the legal and political
spheres. If the media fails to heed these problems, they could
curtail press freedom and the young democracy it promotes.

The fresh threats include the drafting of draconian bills
targeting the press, plans by the House of Representatives to
speed up the deliberation of the bills and a move by the
government to upgrade the status of the Office of the State
Minister for Communications and Information, a move being
monitored by the press with apprehension.

The question among journalists is whether these steps will
continue, and will they usher in an era of a controlled press
similar to the New Order era, when the information ministry acted
as a regulator of the media.

The draft laws now being deliberated by the House consist of a
bill on pornography and a new criminal code. The pornography bill
regulates material that can be aired or printed by the media, but
the quandary is that pornography for some is art to others. The
new criminal code, which contains 40 clauses on the press, would
criminalize libel and stipulates harsher punishments for press
infractions.

In contrast to the attention given by the executive and
legislative branches to the two draft laws, as seen in their
speedy deliberation, a bill on the Information Act, which would
give people and the media more access to public information, has
been lying dormant in the legislature for a long time.

Public apprehension about the future of a free press, which
evolved after the fall of strongman Soeharto in 1998, was
compounded by an emotional outburst by President Susilo, a leader
portrayed as responsive, courteous and calm, and his ministers
over reports critical of the government.

Susilo became furious earlier this month about a poll that
indicated his popularity was declining. There is great potential
for Susilo's numbers to tumble if he fails to live up to the high
expectations the people have placed on him to fix the problems
besetting the country, though it would be unfair to put all of
the blame on him.

These turns of event have added fuel to speculation among the
already suspicious press that the current government is just
another regime that will not tolerate dissenting opinions and
will use its power to muzzle the media if pushed against the
wall.

The relationship between the government and the media in the
last 40 years from Soeharto to Megawati Soekarnoputri, except
during the transitional government of B.J. Habibie, who
liberalized the media industry in 1998, has been mostly gloomy,
with the government exploiting the media through various devices.

Soeharto built cozy ties with the press in the first seven
years of his 32-year rule, but banned 10 publications after the
Malari riots in 1974. Soeharto continued to impose tight controls
over the press until his fall in 1998. Megawati, known as a
media-shy leader, received an outpouring of support from the
press during the initial stage of her presidency, but that
support plunged when she turned her back on the press.

It is too early to predict whether history will repeat itself,
but both Susilo and his predecessors initially received sympathy
and support from the press. The difference is that as a president
directly elected by the people, Susilo needs the press more than
his predecessors, who were elected by the members of the People's
Consultative Assembly.

The future of Susilo's government largely depends on the
media, which shapes public opinion about his government through
editorials, commentaries, news reports and polls -- a tool
commonly used in democracies to gauge the popularity of a leader
or government. So it is puzzling to hear Susilo say, "I don't
care about my popularity."

Interestingly, Susilo's outburst took place not long after a
visit by State Minister for Communications and Information Sofyan
Djalil to two Jakarta-based media that had run reports critical
of the government. The visits were followed by an "invitation" to
media executives to meet with Susilo at the Presidential Palace.

Both steps, especially the meeting, are problematic in view of
their appropriateness, as they could be interpreted by the media
community as a form of pressure or intimidation. This conclusion
is not an exaggeration, as these visits and meeting had all the
hallmarks of briefings and meetings held by the defunct
information ministry and the military during the New Order
regime, where government officials gave media executives lists of
what they could and could not do.

So rather than harassing the media with "visits" and
"invitations", the government must learn how to deal with the
press. The current government needs the media more than previous
governments as a tool to improve its image among the people, who
now have a direct say in who leads the country.

The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.