The need to regain trust in Indonesian press despite freedom

Dewi Anggraeni, Novelist, Journalist, Canberra

People tend to believe that rapid advancement in information technology has opened up many corners of the world hitherto shrouded in secrecy, or just downright inaccessible. News travels, and can be immediately accessed electronically, if the printed form proves too sluggish. There is a sense of power which comes with the knowledge that you can find out what is happening on the other side of the world just by pressing several keys on your computer.

Interestingly however, people in western countries will generally try to access news in publications known to them, which usually means American, British and Western European newspapers and magazines. Consciously or unconsciously, these people know that those publications employ editors, journalists and reporters with high degrees of professionalism, hence their reporting is presumably reliable.

Conversations with Australian friends and acquaintances, media practitioners and the reading public alike, revealed the reasons behind their lack of trust in the veracity of news in non-western publications. In their perception, journalists and editors of these publications, being under pressure from their repressive governments, have to temper the tenor of their stories, rendering the accuracy of their reporting doubtful.

Consequently, they believe that only the foreign correspondents of western publications are able to report accurately and with impunity, because they only answer to their editors at home, not to the local authorities.

This kind of perception is certainly out of date where Indonesia is concerned. The press here has been freed up to the extent that those in the authorities are complaining that news reporting has become irresponsible and unprofessional, bordering on sensationalism. And the local population increasingly perceive their press as having so much freedom it has lost focus.

So the main problem in Indonesian press is no longer external, which is the omnipresent long arm of the government, but internal, namely the lack of professionalism on the part of the practitioners.

In the meantime, most people overseas who value freedom of expression, are not even aware of the new freedom the Indonesian press is enjoying, and still do not trust its news reporting. This paints a bleak picture about the press in Indonesia. It is neither trusted inside nor outside the country.

People who live in countries where media practitioners are generally well-trained and adequately paid often forget that in many parts of the world journalists and reporters, especially those who are not on the staff of, or on retainer arrangements with, established publication companies, have to eke out their living extremely creatively.

In Indonesia a well-known terminology, wartawan amplop, or "envelope journalists" describes reporters and journalists who, at the end of an interview or a media conference, receive envelopes offered by the interviewee or the organizer of the media conference, containing an attractive amount of cash. This serves as a reward paid in advance for putting the person or the events in a good light.

Journalists who stand by moral principles and refuse the "envelopes" often have to supplement their incomes by doing other jobs. This naturally reduces their ability to upgrade their skills. Professional development courses offered free by media managements are few and far between, so many journalist have had to fund their own professional self-improvement. Those who cannot afford such luxury, have to improvise and learn as they go.

They have to learn not only the nuts and bolts of getting a good story, how to network just enough so as not to be cheated out of their scoop, they also have to learn how to look after themselves physically. And then they have to wait for the payment cheques for their published articles to arrive.

In countries where law and order are well implemented, one of the first things a student of journalism learns is the legal limitations when reporting, and the risks of wading in the gray area where the border between legal and illegal is not clear-cut. In Indonesia, while aspiring journalists have to learn the same theoretical skills, they also have to acquire highly-tuned intuition and be streetwise. They have to be able to tell as soon as they are in dangerous territory, such as when the supporters of the subject of their critical reporting do not like what they wrote in the previous day's paper.

Journalists find it hard to be professional when they have to juggle several jobs at the same time and be good at what they are doing. Media managements who claim they have to continuously cut costs, do not feel the immediate need to provide professional development training to their own staff and stringers, let alone to loosely connected contributors whose articles they might use from time to time.

Amazingly, in Indonesia the ground is covered with journalists who are not on the staff of any established publications, though many of these are appropriately skilled. Understandably, for media companies who can only make short-term plans, this is an ideal situation, for they can just pick the best talents off the street and take advantage of their skills without having to make expensive commitments to have them on their staff.

However, being talented and streetwise alone do not a professional journalist make. In the long term therefore, unless media management show serious commitments to improving the professional skills of the journalists who write for them, who are after all the beach-heads of their news reporting, the Indonesian press will find it hard to ascend to the class of media trusted by those inside as well outside the country.