Public happy with press freedom: Study

Desy Nurhayati ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sat, 04/26/2008 12:01 PM  |  National

The public is satisfied with freedom of the press in Indonesia, according to a Press Council survey released Thursday.

The survey found 54.4 percent of respondents believed the press was free to publish any kind of news report without censorship, while 35.7 percent doubted such press freedom.

Of the respondents, 63 percent said the press exercised its freedom appropriately, and 25 percent said the press had gone too far in its reports.

"Fifty-three percent of respondents say press freedom is absolute and should not be controlled by any law," said Press Council executive secretary Lukas Luwarso, who designed the survey.

"Only 10 percent of respondents believe the freedom is not absolute and should be regulated by law."

Most respondents said the government should not revive the censorship system to determine which issues could be covered by the press and which could not, he said.

More than two-thirds of the respondents said the press was free from any influence or repression by government officials.

However, 31 percent said the press was still controlled by media owners.

More than half of the respondents said the press played its role well in monitoring the actions of state officials and decision-makers, as well as in entertaining people.

Its functions of informing and educating people were applauded by 46 percent and 37 percent of respondents, respectively.

The survey questioned 305 respondents in six major cities across the country. The cities were Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Pontianak, Makassar and Jayapura.

The Press Council said the survey did not represent every level of society as it was conducted by telephone interview.

The respondents, whose names and numbers were randomly selected from the telephone directory, were contacted by their landlines.

The survey posed sampling errors of about 5.7 percent and claimed a confidence level of 95 percent.

Council deputy chairman Sabam Leo Batubara said his organization would use the findings to improve its role in upholding press freedom.

"We are satisfied with the survey results indicating the public acknowledges freedom of the press. We still have more to do," he said.

Leo said one area for improvement was in regard to people's ignorance about procedures when they had a dispute with the media.

"According to the survey, most respondents don't understand they can file a report to the Press Council or use their right to respond. They still report to the police when facing a problem with the press."

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