Sorry I haven’t replied sooner but as well as undergoing a couple of eye ops I’ve been updating Culture Shock! Jakarta; this has a section on the media.

My blog gets a mere 200 or so views a day, so cannot be said to be in any way influential. What’s more, I do practice an element of self-censorship, not so much for fear of a knock on the door or of being blocked, but because I’ve always believed in fairness and balance. I remain a fan of ‘proper’ journalism and often use it as reference to back up my blog posts.

Apart from Tempo, the mass media is very different though.

Take the (non) reportage of the Lapindo mudflow in East Java. Most folk believe that the Bakrie company Lapindo Brantas was mainly responsible for it – hence their name for it. In 2008, Bakrie took over the Surabaya Post, the local newspaper, and appointed two Lapindo executives as directors. Until then, the paper had a critical and sympathetic stance towards the ‘refugees’, but it publishes news about the mudflow sourced from Lapindo.

Apart from the national TV stations TVOne and ANTV, in which Murdoch’s Star Group has a 20% stake, Bakrie’s conglomerate also owns the Surabaya TV station ArekTV, and the online wire service VivaNews.

The Jawa Post group has over 100 newspapers throughout Indonesia, as well as local television stations including JTV in Surabaya, by Batam TV in Batam and Riau TV in Pekanbaru.

Yes, there are loads of us twittering away and I’ve been interviewed by the BBC (about the February 2007 floods), and both the UK Guardian and Observer about the Bali bombings etc. Yet I really don’t think we have much sway in the overall scheme of things. Sure, there was the government minister who was forced to apologise for driving along the Busway lane, and the Minister of Communication has had to fend off criticism for his inane twitterings.

In general though, little of what is posted in social networks is considered, although anything which serves the growth of literacy among Indonesians, who until 1998 were not allowed to ‘think’, is to be encouraged.

Since your last comment, molotov cocktails have been thrown at the Tempo HQ, and Suharto’s eldest daughter Tutut has tried to take back control of TPI, the TV station passed on to MNC shortly after the ‘abdication’ of her father.

Thanks for the comment. I’d suggest we need to redefine the concept of what is the ‘media,’ who owns it, and where Indonesians get their news. As for the ‘nonsense’ comment, well, controversy is some times what’s needed to kickstart a debate. : )

In terms of traditional media, newspapers, TV, and radio, yes, the cost of production has tended to create media oligarchies. That’s true in Western democracies as well.

Sara did a lot of solid reporting. I’m not sure the conclusion was so solid.

My main objection was to the notion that ‘censors’ are pushing back the tide of free speech in Indonesia. The second dispute was the association of Indonesia with Thailand. Together, the two points reveal a ‘view from Washington.’ There’s often an assumption – hailing from Washington – that the world is a series of dominoes waiting to fall into a series of liberal-democratic states. Sometimes, say the wonks, all they need is a push.

The Diplomat purports to be a voice in the region. The world looks different from here than from Washington.

Jakartass — now I’ve read your blog. Be honest – do you feel the heat of the ‘censors’ ? Do you get phone calls from the Information Ministry threatening to revoke whatever visa you happen to be on ? Or can you more or less spout off at will about whatever you want ? Why is the Jakartass blog a less legitimate media than, say, the Diplomat or the Jakarta Globe ?

Try asking an editor or employee – or a Western journalist – and see what they say about Blogs.

On the media, we’re way beyond the point at which newspapers, TV, radio, have a monopoly on that term. Twitter broke the terrorist bombings in July 2009. Hundreds of thousands of Jakartans stay in touch with their personal networks through Blackberry and Facebook.

It’s true, the ‘traditional’ media in Indonesia has a longer life expectancy than in the West. The digital divide here means there are more people reading newspapers and listening to radios because they can’t afford the internet or a smart phone.

But I put it to you that the ‘mediascape’ is a more valid concept than the Citizen Kane world. And that goes for 2010 Indonesia as well.

This latest stoush between Tempo and the police will be interesting.

In fact, these forces are using ‘demokrasi’ for their own ends.

And Tom McC’s comment about “a diversity of [media] ownership” is plainly wrong, as even a cursory bit of googling makes clear.

There may well be some independent media, but the national and regional media are largely owned by just a few oligarchs with their own agendas, mainly Suhartoist..

Chairul Tanjung, a close ally of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is the owner of the Trans TV and Trans 7 TV stations. He bought Trans from Jacob Oetama who founded the leading daily broadsheet, Kompas, Jawa Pos and Indonesia’s major book publisher and seller, Gramedia. Although with an independent voice, the English-language daily, the Jakarta Post is, I believe part of the group.

The other English-language daily is the Jakarta Globe founded by the Lippo Group, owned by James Riady, born-again Christian, real-estate magnate and friend of Bill and Hilary Clinton.

Suryo Paloh, a recent challenger for the chairmanship of Golkar, Suharto’s former political ‘functional’ group, has Metro TV and the daily Media Indonesia. Having failed to ‘buy’ the chairmanship of Golkar, he is the prime mover behind the Nasional Demokrat grouping of old regime figures, such as Akbar Tanjung, who’ve lost their perches of power.

Suryo Paloh and Akbar Tanjung have both lost out to Abdurizal Bakrie for the control of Golkar, Suharto’s ‘functional’ grouping. The Bakrie family control ANTV and TV One which was launched on 14th February 2008 by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY). Bakrie has a business relationship with Rupert Murdoch.

Indosiar is a member company of the Salim group, which has had majority stakes in Indofoods and Bank Central Asia. Lim Swie Leong, the founder of the Salim group, was a Suharto crony.

The Media Nusantara Citra group is particularly interesting as a majot stakeholder is the Bimantara group – the business front of Bambang, Suharto’s middle son. MNC owns RCTI, TPI, Global TV and a host of radio stations and newspapers.

If you want ‘independence, then you have to look at Tempo magazine and their daily paper Koran Tempo. Founded by Goenawan Muhammed who has just this week returned a Bakrie award given by a foundation founded by Abdurizal Bakrie’s father on the grounds that possessing the award embarrassed him.

Tempo has regularly been harassed by the Suharto cronies listed above.
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Apologies for any out of date info above, but it has all been gleaned from current wensites.

There may well be technical problems with libel and defamation laws. But such laws are often irrelevant when the courts are for hire to the highest bidder in a cesspool of graft and bribery.

The law and courts thus become as the Greek philosopher Anarchus said, only strong enough to catch the weak but not the strong.

Indonesia has one of the freest mass media in Asia, along with India and the Phillippines. Authoritarian controls were torn up in 1998 and a ‘mediascape’ including twitter, blogs, and SMS-communication sprang into the vaccuum. Responsibility hasn’t always accompanied the freedoms. Ms.Schondhart didn’t mention the culture of bribe-taking ‘envelope journalists’ or ‘wartawan amplop.’ Nor did she mention ‘wartawan bodrek’ or extortionists posing as journalists.

A far greater problem is just factual inaccuracies, or basic reporting errors. In short, too often the Indonesian press just doesn’t try hard enough to get it right. It’s an embarrassing fact you won’t hear in a polite interview with the Indonesian Press Council.

It’s true the forces of the ancien regime from time to time try to claw back some of the power they’ve lost in the last decade. Sometime around 2002 President Megawati Soekarnoputri tried to reinstate the Orwellian Suharto-era Ministry of Information. There have been other attempts since then, including the internet regulation attempts mentioned by Ms. Schonhardt.

But the media invite such attacks through their poor standards. Of course, there are many individual journalists of the highest professional standards. Many of them if you catch them in private, as I have done, will admit how poor the rest of the profession is.

Equally, the libel laws may well be flawed. The buffoons in Indonesia’s parliament can hardly bring themselves to turn up and each year only do a fraction of the work they’d promised. Hundreds of Indonesian laws are vague and poorly worded.

But what relevance does the law have when the courts are so corrupt ? Prita – the woman mentioned in the piece was sued by a private hospital. It’s easy for a rich and powerful party to counter-attack a negative media piece through defamation suits. But justice for sale is hardly just an Indonesian problem. Show me a decent news organization in any democracy that doesn’t worry about getting sued.

The unfortunate reality is not that sinister forces are conspiring to turn back the tide of democracy. It’s that Indonesian journalists aren’t doing a better job. If they were, there’d be less excuse for such poor libel laws.

There are a lot of vibrant newspapers, and among a small number there are strong investigative journalists. But muzzles on speech are very real, for anyone who does not accord with the powerful. You’re allowed to say anything, except for the things that you are not. Indonesia may be a formal democracy but it is very much still half-reformed in practice.

Alas, it seems, such a time has passed.

Just flick or glance through the diverse print, internet, and television media offerings in a diversity of ownership that would shame most Western democracies (if only your correspondent could understand the language). This story is one of those ‘three incidents make a trend,’ piece.

Sara, apologies for the outburst, but you need to cover more ground before spouting off. And so does the Diplomat.