R

ecently, Metro TV ran a news story about the five years remission granted to smuggling convict Schapelle Corby by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The announcer suggested that the remission was in some sense unjust and that Schapelle really deserved to spend 20 years of her life behind bars for importing a leaf known to have many useful medicinal applications for many people.

At the bottom of the screen scrolled a news ticker, announcing that a television station’s journalists had rejected any under the table financial compensation in exchange for positive news coverage.

Then came the commercial break, in which it became apparent that the entire show was in fact sponsored by a cigarette company as a promotion for their new cigarettes!

Perhaps TV journalists are too lazy to research what drugs are lethal and what drugs are not. Or perhaps TV managers see nothing wrong in slanting news coverage to benefit producers of deadly and addictive poisonous cocktails in exchange for billions of rupiah; after all, the payments are all legal and above board.

Viewers, however, are left to wonder what the effects on Indonesia might be of having news channels that make profitability and political convenience their highest priorities and truth their lowest.

John Hargreaves
Jakarta