World Press Freedom Day 2002: The face of RI media
World Press Freedom Day 2002: The face of RI media
Claire Harvey, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Four years of reformasi have given Indonesia a vibrant,
lively, diverse media filled with important stories and ethical
journalists and probing analysis.
But today, across Indonesia, some journalists will be
threatened and intimidated and harassed. Some journalists will
take envelopes stuffed with money from government officials to
supplement their meager wages. Other reporters will simply make
up salacious stories to please their editors. Politicians will
complain over their breakfast cereal about the gossipy,
irresponsible press. And in some anonymous government buildings,
bureaucrats will decide whether certain foreign reporters are
worthy of the right to cover Indonesia.
Everyone knows Indonesia's press is loud and critical, but is
it really free?
To celebrate World Press Freedom Day, the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is
hosting a seminar on Friday with speakers including Media
Indonesia editor Saur Hutabarat, legal academic Harkristuti
Harkrisnowo and lawyer Hotma Sitompoel.
Arya Gunawan, coordinator of UNESCO Indonesia's communications
sector, says there have been several "disturbing" threats to
press freedom over the past six months, including suggestions by
President Megawati Soekarnoputri and other politicians that the
media should be more "responsible".
"Even Tommy Soeharto's lawyers are complaining that their
client has already been tried by the media. There have been so
many influential figures attacking the media in the last few
months -- it's really important that we guarantee the media's
freedom now."
Columnist Wimar Witoelar says freedom of the press is one of
the most significant achievements of the past four years.
But this freedom is threatened by the present political regime
and by the media's own love of sensationalism, says Wimar, the
former presidential spokesman for Abdurrahman Wahid and now
visiting professor of journalism at Australia's Deakin
University.
"We have a free press, but it takes a lot of energy to keep it
free," Wimar said.
"Every entrenched power seeks to compromise that freedom and
we must always resist those efforts. At the same time, the
freedom has often been abused -- it is up to the press themselves
to see that the freedom is put to best use."
Some media have taken their newfound liberty too far, Wimar
said.
"Scandals are all right if they have some substance, but a
sensationalist press, a negative press which seeks to glorify
individuals who are publicity seekers is not really free."
The number of press publications has exploded from about 300
in 1998 to more than 700 now, there are now 10 TV stations and
the number of radio stations has risen from 800 to over 1200,
says Indonesian Press Council chair Atmakusumah Astraatmadja.
But the problem is there are simply not enough trained
journalists to meet the massive demand for copy.
Tempo magazine journalist Ignatius Haryanto has set up the
Institute for the Study and Development of the Press (LSPP),
which produces research publications on the media and stages
workshops on basic journalistic skills.
Haryanto has just returned from a workshop in Kupang, East
Nusa Tenggara, where he said the practice of government officials
and companies giving reporters amplop -- or envelopes stuffed
with money in return for positive coverage -- is widespread.
"Approximately 80 per cent of journalists in a place like
Kupang take amplop -- and that is true for the rest of
Indonesia," Haryanto said. "The problem is they are not paid
enough -- a graduate journalist earns as little as Rp 200,000
(US$22) a month, so it's no wonder they are tempted," he said.
"It's really up to press owners to pay journalists decent
wages -- otherwise their publications will never really be free
or independent."
Haryanto found another problem in Kupang was teaching
journalists the importance of balance.
"Often journalists don't think they have to get confirmation
or comments from both sides of a story, and when it comes to
reporting an issue like refugees, many journalists are simply
biased against the refugees and describe them in disparaging
terms. We teach them the importance of using language carefully
in conflict situations, because tensions can flare up so easily."
Ati Nurbaiti, chairperson of the Alliance of Independent
Journalists (AJI), criticizes President Megawati Soekarnoputri's
decision to ban "doorstop" impromptu press conferences for
herself and Vice President Hamzah Haz.
"If the government allocated enough time for proper press
conferences, like the President of the United States does, then
we wouldn't have to doorstop her," Nurbaiti said.
"Megawati criticizes the press for being irresponsible but it
would seem she only reads the sensational media, not the
responsible press. If she judges the media on tabloid headlines,
she is missing the point."
AJI is pushing for a guarantee of press freedom in the
Constitution, and wants the government to drop its planned law on
state secrecy and anti-terrorism.
Indonesia's foreign media community was shocked in March by
the foreign ministry's decision to deny Australian reporter
Lindsay Murdoch a new journalist's visa.
The foreign ministry described this as a "technical issue,"
but Murdoch's editors at the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age
said he was being punished for alleging human rights abuses by
Indonesian military.
Don Greenlees, chair of the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents'
Club and Jakarta correspondent for The Australian newspaper, says
his letters requesting an explanation for Murdoch's expulsion
from Megawati and senior Cabinet ministers have been ignored.
"We've had concerns over the past four years about certain
incidents when our members reporting in the field have come under
some sort of duress -- but successive governments have been quite
good in dealing with the foreign press and the domestic press,"
Greenlees said.
"Free press is an integral part of democracy -- in fact
without a free press, you don't have democracy at all."