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s far as sustainable development is concerned, the world is about to exit one phase and enter another. Of course, not many people know about it, and the media probably does not care.

At the beginning of the millennium, nations around the world, including Indonesia, pledged to work toward improving the lives of their people. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set a number of clear and specific targets, including halving the number of people living in extreme poverty, ensuring universal education for children and curbing the spread of communicable diseases '€” all within 15 years.

That period is about to end. Recently, Indonesia'€™s outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was part of a three-member, high-level panel to prepare the world for a new sustainable development agenda beyond 2015. One of the findings from their report was the need for the media to better engage public participation.

This week in Bali, UNESCO and the Indonesian government organized the Global Media Forum, inviting journalists and media workers from around the world to take up that challenge. Sure enough, the forum came up with a list of recommendations for the media (both the conventional and the new type), the government and relevant UN agencies to bring the media on board for the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.

Like the media really cares. Judging by its performance in the last 15 years, apathy seems to be the general attitude of media in Indonesia.

How many journalists and editors know how Indonesia has performed as far as the MDGs are concerned? They can all probably recite how many passengers were on board the ill-fated Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 that went missing on flight MH17 that was shot down in Ukraine, or any other tragic plane accidents this year. But do they know that the maternal mortality rate in Indonesia equals one filled-to-capacity Boeing 777 crashing each week?

That shocking figure was presented by Yanuar Nugroho, a special advisor to the head of the Presidential Working Unit for the Supervision and Management of Development (UKP4), during the forum in Bali. He rightly asked the question: Where is the media in all this?

Indonesia has in fact failed in three of the eight MDGs. Besides the failure to bring down the maternal mortality rate, it HAS failed to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS and improve access to clean water and sanitation. Again, most likely these are facts that escape the radar of most Indonesians, thanks to the ignorant media.

The media in Indonesia should face more scrutiny for its failure to do its part all this time in promoting human and social development. Journalists in this country are fortunate to have far more freedom than many of their counterparts around the world. They could at least show that they care about the fate of their compatriots who are less fortunate than they are.

 Compassion seems to be missing in the work of our journalists.