Ancaman terhadap profesi kewartawanan kerap terjadi di dunia professional. Padahal pekerjaan jurnalistik adalah sebuah pekerjaan memenuhi keingintahuan masyarakat, yang tujuannya bukan untuk kepentingan si wartwan sendiri.
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| Dessy Kania, Ketua jurusan Ilmu Komunikasi menyerahkan plakat UPH kepada Agus Sudibyo. | Agus Sudibyo (kiri) pembicara dan Emrus Sihombing (kanan) sebagai moderator. |
Threats to the journalistic professions often occur in the professional world. Whereas journalism is meant to satisfy the society?s curiosity, not merely for the journalists? own sake. “On one side, the threats of violence, kidnapping, and terror against journalists and their families still exist, and on the other side, it is said that Indonesian press is now going out of control,” said Agus Sudibyo, a representative of the Press Council (Dewan Pers), at the journalistic seminar titled “Pahlawan atau Preman? Pers Indonesia di Persimpangan? (Heroes or Mafia? Indonesian Press at the Crossroad), at MYC (11/3). The fact is, a lot of parties depend on media?s performance. For example, the Corruption Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi) and the National Human Right Commission (Komnas HAM); these organizations need media so that their data can be made known to society.
?Looking at violent cases toward journalists that happened quite frequently, it really showed that our country and government are unable to protect journalistic professions against the threat that could endanger the media functions,” said Agus. The dual ? public media function (spreading information to public) should have given safety guarantee to journalists in doing their jobs.
Indeed, compared with the press in Indonesia before 1998, currently Indonesian press is getting much more freedom. Exposure of government news has been much more compared to before the reform. However, there are many laws and ?rubber articles? that could discredit the press. For example, the laws of Information and Elektronic Transaction (Informasi dan Transaksi Elektronik- ITE), and the minister?s regulations on multimedia content.
“In the multimedia content regulation, there is an article which states that; online medias ? let?s say detik.com for example ? are prohibited to load and transmit the content that contains pornography, violence, false news, religion issue, racial issue, ethnic issue, and so on. However, it was never made clear in ITE law, the definitions of false news, pornography, etc.,”said Agus. What is worst, the sanction for any media that is proven guilty bearing content of pornography, defamation, harassment, is such as revocation of permit. “This really is a bredel (Constraint of the Press) in a new form,” said Agus.
If we observe carefully, the main issue right now is actually government?s tight control which results in the slowing down of press movement. There is a tendency to place the press under the government, which is really similar to what is happening in neighboring countries. This can be seen clearly from the complexity of licensing and control mechanisms of the content in various media. (Sar)
UPH Media Relations
