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In Timor Leste, young journalists seek to boost professionalism
Tito Filipe, 30, started as a reporter in Dili, Timor Leste, when he was 21 just after he finished high school
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ito Filipe, 30, started as a reporter in Dili, Timor Leste, when he was 21 just after he finished high school.
He is now a coordinator of a Tetum (local language) unit at state-funded Radio Television Timor Leste (RTTL). 'Many reporters in Timor Leste are high school graduates,' Filipe said.
Rosa Garcia, 40, started her career as a journalist in Dili when she was 20 years old. At that time she was also a correspondent for Kyodo News, Reuters and the BBC. In 1999, she, along with 13 others, published a newsletter, Timor Post, which later became one of the country's biggest private daily newspapers.
Lack of education and low literacy, together with poor infrastructure and Internet access, mean that journalists in the country ' which gained its independence from Indonesia in 2002 ' struggle to improve their quality.
The main problem was human resources, Timor Leste State Secretary for Communications Nelyo Isaac Sarmento said during a discussion last week in Dili attended by journalists from Timor Leste and Indonesia, as well as Indonesian experts.
'Almost all journalists are young and many [started their jobs] after high school. They directly entered professional journalism with only one or two weeks' training. That's not enough,' Sarmento said.
Timor Post, with a daily print run of around 3,000 copies, has 11 reporters and nine editors. Suara Timor Lorosae, another private daily newspaper with a circulation of around 2,000 and which operates a radio and television station, has nine reporters and six editors, while RTTL has around 55 people in their newsroom. Their offices are modest compared to those of the Indonesian media.
The study of journalism is also rather new in Timor Leste, whose National University established a communications degree in 2008.
The 2013 Press Freedom Index by Paris-based NGO, Reporters Without Borders, ranks Indonesia at 139th of 179 countries, 49 positions behind Timor Leste. However, it appeared that Timorese journalists were more enthusiastic than their Indonesian counterparts during the discussion as they wanted to learn more from Indonesia. Questions on ethics, press freedom and independence were brought to the floor by them during the event.
Due to the absence of a common code of ethics and no specific laws on media, or on freedom of information, the Timorese media have no clear guidelines in carrying out their mission as watchdogs.
Pending a draft media law, the only legal guidelines are set in Articles 40 and 41 of the Timor Leste Constitution on freedom of expression, information and the press.
Many of the newspapers ' which use four languages; Tetum, Portuguese, English and Indonesian 'for example Timor Post and Suara Timor Lorosae, simply copied and pasted stories from leading Indonesian media, Garcia said.
The crowd laughed when an expert at Indonesia's Communications and Information Technology Ministry, Teguh Himawan, said Indonesian journalists also often 'cloned' other journalists' stories.
In a controversial move, the Timorese government decided to subsidize distribution of four dailies ' Suara Timor Lorosae, Timor Post, Diario Nacional and Independente ' and a weekly Tempo Semanal in districts across the country as their circulation did not extend beyond Dili.
Filipe, who is also head of the Journalists Association of Timor Leste, said his organization had criticized the policy as it could undermine media independence.
Sarmento said the government acknowledged that risk but said that the policy was meant 'to promote media to the people to trigger their interest in reading'.
'As a new country, we are focused on improving all sectors,' he said. 'The government wants to make press freedom an essential necessity. We want to see a professional press. We are aiming to form a news agency, to have regulations on press, training institutions and a press council.'
During the discussion, Garcia also raised a question as to whether political affiliation would hamper the Indonesian press ahead of the 2014 elections as the owners of three major media groups in Indonesia led political parties.
Two Indonesian journalists said they would try to maintain their ideals even if it went against their
companies.
