'Uncertainty creates anxiety in the press'

'Uncertainty creates anxiety in the press'

DEPOK, West Java (JP): The government controls the press by
sending editors unclear signals as to what degree of freedom is
allowed, an expert says.

This method has been forcing the press to engage in guessing
games, said Dr. Harsono Suwardi, a political communication
scientist at the University of Indonesia (UI), 30 kilometers
south of here.

In an oration marking his UI professorship, he discussed how
the government exercises control over the press. Harsono also
dealt with the press' attempts to exploit recent political
"openness".

Harsono pointed out that the prevailing axiom of "a free and
responsible press" applied by the government represents control
of the press, albeit in no absolute form.

"History has shown," he said, "that the so-called press
freedom here actually serves as an indication of the government's
control." Press freedom is not certain, he concluded.

"This uncertainty has created anxiety in the press because it
has to continuously gauge the sensitivity of the authorities. It
has to rely on instincts only," Harsono said before a panel of
professors led by Rector M.K. Tadjudin.

"If press control is unavoidable," he said, "it seems that
we'll need a mechanism of supervision so that all parties are
sure of their rights and duties."

Establishing a "fixed" mechanism of control, however, could
backlash because it connotes a certain rigidity in its
implementation.

Entitled Reflections on the Relationship among the Press,
Government and Society in Relation to Freedom and Traditional
Values, Harsono's oration also explored the press' ability to
control the government.

He pointed out that Indonesia once enjoyed great press
freedom, which faded away following a number of political crises
in the 1970s.

For his dissertation, Harsono studied 10 major newspapers
published and circulated in Java and Bali. He discovered that
they tended to maintain the so-called paternalistic relationship
with the authorities in order to survive.

The government has been blamed for its efforts to control the
press but the press itself is not entirely innocent, he said in
the dissertation.

Harsono said yesterday that the government's efforts to
provide greater political leeway have been misused by some
members of the press to "criticize the government in liberal
manners and this has been understood as transgressing the agreed
bounds".

To create a "free and responsible press", he said, all parties
need a certain level of tolerance for each other.

"This virtue is really important because harmony and
similarity in the approach are pre-requirements for a better
relationship among the press, government and society.

Harsono is the 212th professor at the University of Indonesia
and the 15th at the School of Social and Political Sciences.

Born in Tanah Merah, Irian Jaya, in 1937, Harsono now lectures
in the post-graduate program of his almamater. (swe)