Tough challenges await RI journalists, media owners

Tough challenges await RI journalists, media owners

Ardimas Sasdi
Staff Writer
The Jakarta Post
Berkeley, California

The phenomenal development in information technology (IT) over
the last two decades, accelerated by the Internet, has changed
many aspects of human activity.

In journalism, an agent of change in society, the entire
editorial department, from reporters to editors, have no choice
but adapt to the fast-changing conditions that have led to the
existence of real-time news.

The shift in media attitude has also been necessitated by
rising expectations among readers and listeners, who seek not
only quality reporting, but also news that is short and easy to
understand -- in line with their limited time to read and watch
TV, especially among young professionals.

Estimates are that the number of the Internet subscribers will
jump from almost 200 million to at least 800 million people by
the year 2010.

Media people can either resist these change and be left behind
or adjust to the new realities.

In America, media companies and universities have taken steps
to meet the technological challenges brought about by
developments in information technology, which have made newsrooms
-- print and electronic media -- IT intensive. Journalism schools
have redesigned their curriculums to address these changes.

The Graduate School of Journalism at the University of
California at Berkeley, for instance, has for several years been
introducing new subjects formerly not taught at traditional
journalism schools.

A course in computer-assisted reporting, for example,
concentrates on how computers and the Internet can be used by
reporters to help them in processing and gathering information,
including conducting long-distance interviews with witnesses,
victims and officials involved in events taking place far from
their media headquarters.

Problems do exist in this type of news gathering, especially
in verifying the authenticity of news and getting the nuance of
events.

"Journalists can verify facts by interviewing only people they
trust and comparing the results of their interviews with reports
from news agencies and other sources," said Paul Grabowicz, a
lecturer in Computer Assisted Reporting at the Graduate School of
Journalism at UC Berkeley.

Developments in IT are not only a challenge for media
executives and educators, but also for politicians and
governments, especially in developing countries where the quality
of reporting needs improvement.

In Indonesia, experts, academics and media watch organizations
have time and again lashed out at poor media management and
questioned the commitment of media executives and owners to human
resources development.

Apart from information technology, journalists in Indonesia
have a host of challenges to overcome. During a recent in-house
training at The Jakarta Post, veteran journalist Sabam Siagian
said journalists must sharpen their skills and curiosity and
avoid complacency to meet the tough challenges ahead -- the
changing situation in Indonesia and the world, including the
future role of China in the 21st century, the major influence of
a united Europe on information and technology, the growing role
of Russia in the Asia Pacific and how long the U.S. can maintain
its dominant global power.

If other media executives share such concerns the Indonesian
media will surely improve, and the goal of building an informed
citizenry will become reality. An informed and educated populace
is crucial for the establishment of a civil society, good
governance and democracy.

The press can play a constructive role in Indonesia's noble
plan to build a civil society, good governance and democracy only
if there is press freedom and if journalists are exposed to the
new political concepts and empowered through proper training and
education programs. And journalists must also cooperate and work
to improve themselves, given that the core of the craft of
journalism is knowledge and skills.

The writer is a visiting scholar at the Graduate School of
Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.