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Media agrees to contribute to building ASEAN Community
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Unity – President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo takes a picture with representatives of media companies from nine ASEAN member countries after a lunch meeting at the State Palace in Jakarta on Tuesday. (Courtesy of the Presidential Office/-)
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epresentatives of media companies from several ASEAN member countries have agreed to establish a forum to support the ASEAN Community and to strengthen relationships among ASEAN member countries, not only in economic terms but also people-to-people relations.
They met with the government during a lunch meeting hosted by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo at the State Palace in Jakarta on Tuesday. Media representatives from nine ASEAN countries, namely Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam, attended the meeting.
Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara said that during the meeting, President Jokowi had explained his economic reforms, which were focused on deregulation.
"I noticed the President mentioned the word 'competition' seven times and 'deregulation' four times. Thus, he wanted to underline that Indonesia was in the process of repositioning and deregulating its economic policies to make it more competitive," the minister said.
Commenting on the media's plan to contribute to the building of the ASEAN Community using a bottom up approach, Rudiantara said that in general, Jokowi supported the plan.
"In the context of facilitating their contribution and providing strategies, we will certainly give support," Rudiantara said. The type of contribution media was expected to make to the building of the ESEAN Community was not elaborated on in the meeting.
The Jakarta Post editor-in-chief Endy Bayuni said that as the ASEAN community was only launched on 31 December last year, its effects remained invisible. Among the three pillars of the ASEAN Community, namely economic, political and security, and socio-cultural, the ASEAN Economic Community seems to be the most advanced pillar while the two remaining pillars have seemingly been left behind.
"We then came up with an idea: Why don’t the media take the initiative? So we set up a meeting to discuss the development of the ASEAN Community," Endy said, adding that in the long term, all media companies attending the meeting would initiate a collaboration network.
Endy further said that media could play a role in the development of the community using a bottom-up approach. "We don't have to wait for the command from our governments. We will start to vocalize that we have established the ASEAN Community and it is important for us to continuously develop it together," he explained.
The Jakarta Post itself has already initiated ASEAN pages which consist of news from the region. The Post’s online version has a Southeast Asia section.
"Some of them also have it [a Southeast Asia section], but this is not enough," he said.
The senior journalist went on to say that to that end, it was important to carry out journalist exchanges. "The purpose is that the 10 ASEAN nations get to know each other," he added.
Jakarta Post Digital editor-in-chief Nezar Patria added that in its development, the ASEAN Community involved only government-to-government relations without making attempts to foster aspects such as people-to-people relations. Hence, the media in the region agreed to establish a media forum to further develop the ASEAN Community.
"The Jakarta Post is the vocal point to the media forum for ASEAN Community building. We will establish a preparatory committee and set up the structure and the activities," he said.
The media forum will meet in Laos, coinciding with the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of ASEAN on Aug. 8, 2017. (ebf)
