TV news encourage drug abuse: PWI

JAKARTA (JP): The media, especially television stations, tended to exploit sex, crime and violence in their news reports to the point of encouraging people to commit crimes, an Indonesian Journalists Association (PWI) executive said yesterday.

PWI secretary general Parni Hadi told a meeting of ASEAN drug experts and journalists that such sensational forms of news must be stopped.

"...They only serve to encourage people, particularly youths, to try negative things they have seen on television," Parni said.

He said PWI understood private television stations were profit-oriented companies which needed large funds to cover operational costs.

"But we of all people in the media should have a political will and a moral commitment and responsibility to help control and prevent drug abuse," he said.

He cited an interview with an Ecstasy user, whose face was darkened, at a city discotheque.

Parni blasted the interview which he said conveyed the drug user's enjoyment and innocent feelings. It only inspired young viewers to try Ecstasy pills, he said.

Although PWI had reprimanded some stations for such reporting practices it still happened, he told the week-long course.

Some overseas delegates said television stations in their respective countries had joined forces with the authorities to support their governments' anticrime campaigns.

A Thai Office of the Narcotics Control Board executive, Wangchai Disates, said artists strongly suspected of being drug abusers or being involved in a drug trafficking syndicate were not allowed to perform on local television.

"The idea came from TV people, not the authorities," Wangchai said.

The meeting, opened Monday by Asep Saefudin on behalf of Director General for Press and Graphics Subrata (not Dewabrata as reported earlier), was discussing professional guidelines on the accurate reporting about the danger of illegal drugs. (bsr)