Editorial: Read all about it!

Fri, 08/29/2008 10:46 AM  |  Opinion

"What more freedom could you possibly want?" This was not a father's rebuke to a teenage child, but a remark from Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who was making good use of an invitation to address a press gathering on Tuesday.

In all his travels, he said he found the Indonesian press among the world's freest.

"Of course I enjoy it too," he said, "and then there are times when I really do not enjoy it."

The Alliance of Independent Journalists, celebrating its 14th anniversary, indeed got the opportunity to tell it straight to No. 2's face about obstacles to the constitutional guarantee of freedom of opinion.

Kalla the candid then volleyed scathing criticism of why the press mostly reports gloom and how it "always demands rights without wanting the responsibility".

Media workers here cannot deny the milestones achieved although in the past years we have gone up and down the international ratings on press freedom.

The government of BJ Habibie ended the mandatory press publishing permit which could be revoked anytime rulers wished. With the latest amendment of the Constitution, Indonesia stepped miles ahead of some of its neighbors, making the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of opinion and freedom of association.

It is on this solid foundation -- the state's provision of free space to carry out the press's responsibilities -- that Indonesia's media is able to work today.

These responsibilities obviously cover the dire need to constantly improve professionalism under tight competition.

But how worthy is a press, however professional it sees itself, without its audience, its readers?

A recent report on Afghanistan profiles a rising media businesswoman who has pioneered radio in the post-Taliban era.

Following a report on a warlord, Nadjiba Ayubi told Kompas daily that he came with his armed men to the radio station, demanding to know why such a report mentioning his name was broadcast.

We would claim to be a much more advanced society compared to one struggling daily towards recovery.

But we also have our share of mobs who might be glad to lob a grenade at the television or newspaper office that portrayed their leader in a less favorable light.

In a far from violent way, officials chided the media for contributing to travel warnings of foreign governments that were issued in the wake of reports of bird flu, instances of terrorism and all the disasters that have seemed to hover around us since the tsunami.

But there was also visibly better media literacy among officials, at least an awareness both of the people's right to know and the media's responsibility to cater to this right.

Rather than attempting to suppress bird flu reports, the government progressed to work with the media the best it could to educate people on how to avoid the virus.

What about the public?

Media literacy is a forgotten expedition in efforts to secure freedom of expression.

The fact that press freedom and access to information are as important as elections in a democracy goes unnoticed by the throngs who prefer the gossip and blab of celebrity lifestyles.

Free speech, said Thomas Mann, "is civilization itself".

If the media is to continue to be relevant as a source and medium of entertainment, information, revelation and discourse (in whatever order), its workers can only rely largely on their own self-improvement to elicit a wider understanding and appreciation of how the media works.

We can forever blame our education system, for instance, for failing to instill critical thinking.

But herein lies the greater challenge of Indonesia's media workers, of striving to avoid parroting and perpetuating the soundbites of the environment where we came from.

The press, at least the professional mainstream media, will continue to improve in the hope that its audience will learn to discern the value of the information provided.

There is no memorial for fallen journalists.

No heroes day for impugned writers whose quill and imagination have been interned.

They sought not the fame of celebrity nor the riches of tycoons.

They ask for your readership, viewership and kind attention to express the speech which mirrors the human soul.

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