U.S. diplomat laments RI media bias

U.S. diplomat laments RI media bias

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A United States diplomat complained on Thursday about what she
called "imbalanced reporting" on the war in Iraq by the
Indonesian media.

Speaking during a discussion organized by 68H news radio
station, a member of the U.S. Embassy's Public Affairs department
Greta Morris suggested that the local media should publish more
accurate stories on the U.S. and its allies.

"Sometimes, I'd like to see more balanced coverage of this
issue," she said,

Morris questioned why local media rarely, not to say never,
provided their readers or audience with the information sent by
the U.S. Embassy here about the suffering of Iraqis under
President Saddam Hussein's administration or the assistance given
by the U.S. and its coalition to the Iraqis during the war.

"It is as if there are threats against local media that use
such publications," she said.

When a journalist in the audience demanded that she make a
clarification, Morris seemed to suggest that the threats might
come from thugs or other groups who insisted that the local media
take sides with Iraq.

"It's not easy to say, but I respect the local media as they
are facing a bit of a difficult situation here," she said without
elaborating.

Ulil Abshar Abdalla of the Liberal Islam Network (JIL) said
that it was hard for the media, either foreign or local, to stay
balanced in their coverage of the Iraq war.

"Some foreign media, mostly U.S-based, are pro-U.S., while
many say that Al Jazeera tends to support Iraq," he stated,
referring to the Qatar-based news television channel.

Ulil said that the tendency was a result of the media
intention to fulfill the wishes of their readers or audience.

"It's a challenge for the media to remain balanced in their
reports of the war," he said.

Both Morris and Ulil praised the local media for not
supporting the idea that the U.S.-led attack on Iraq is a war
against Islam.

Uni Lubis of the TV7 television channel, which relays Al
Jazeera news, claimed that the media must decide their position
on the war.

"It's not about supporting the U.S. or Iraq. Once the war
claims the lives of civilians, then the media must take the side
of humanity," she said, explaining the reasons why most local
media published reports of civilian casualties more than the war
itself.

Another speaker, Eryanto of the Institute for the Studies on
the Free Flow of Information (ISAI), suggested that local media
select the abundant flow of reports from foreign sources and
develop balanced reports from them.

"The media must be critical and logical. Always consider
reports from foreign sources as raw material which needs
developing," he said, criticizing local media which often took
foreign sources for granted.

Several Indonesian journalists were sent to Iraq before the
war began, however, most of them could not cover the war directly
from Baghdad for a variety of reasons. They now report from
neighboring countries such as Kuwait or Jordan to cover the war.

Therefore, most media here rely on foreign news agencies for
all accounts of the Iraq war.