Page 66 - Conflict, Terrorism, and the Media In Asia

Indonesia: perning in the Gyre 55
Even the usually conservative TVRI ran eulogies of dead students – ‘galvanizing
public awareness of the tragedy in Jakarta, and indicating that those at the top
were no longer in control’ (Harsono 2000: 85–86).
Government and military officials continued to harass and intimidate journalists
up to Suharto’s resignation and beyond. But the events of May 1998 illustrated the
‘failure’of the Suharto regime to understand the international and local media, and
the political impact of the media and information technology, as the ‘power to
control communications became more and more impractical’ (Harsono 2000: 86).

Media life after Suharto

Controlling communications may have become more impractical, but it is still
something for which many of Indonesia’s political and military elite yearn.
Whichever way they turn they find a media prepared to criticise the ruling elite,
often in terms that shock and awe. In the new media that is free for all, competition
has become acute leading not only to greater quality, but also to more sensational-
ism, from the wide play received by the BBC’s Indonesian language programming
to the new tabloids with ‘speculative and irresponsible’ reporting ‘spiced up with
sex and crime’ (Harsono 2000: 88–89). In addition, the limited resources of the
local media has encouraged the spread of corruption, intimidation and influence
from regional and national political forces. The significant growth of the media
since 1998 has not been matched by investment in training or the development of a
widespread culture of journalistic professionalism (Scarpello 2002).
While financial constraints began to restrict the further expansion of the industry,
even encouraging a dwindling in the number of titles (Idris 2001: 91), new signs
emerged of a determination among the political elite to try to reassert control over
the country’s media. This is partly due to the resistance of the old elite: as with the
military and its influence, many of the old faces are still around. Suharto’s family still
remain influential. His daughter, Tutut, who is said to have political ambitions, owns
four television channels including TVI and SCTV (Reporters without Borders 2002),
and Suharto’s political vehicle, the Golkar Party, remains influential. But, the
Megawati regime was also discomforted by criticism in the media. The President
worried journalists with her close links to the military (Menon 2001), as did her deci-
sion to recreate the post of Minister of Information and to reintroduce to the coun-
try’s penal code prison sentences for ‘slander’(Reporters without Borders 2002). Her
attack on the editor of Rakyat Merdeka was just part of the evidence that her gov-
ernment was not willing to allow a free and often raucous press to continue its work.
But it was Megawati’s attempt to silence the flow of foreign news and
information that was telling as to the outlook of the Indonesian authorities. The
archaic piece of legislation that the government used, was described by Abdullah
Alamudi of Jakarta’s Dr Soetomo Press Institute as turning the clock back to 1964,
when President Sukarno banned people from listening to foreign broadcasts at the
height of the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation. Amin Said Husni, the deputy
head of the parliamentary team drafting the bill, told Reuters, ‘We don’t want our
stations and radio to be foreign kiosks (selling their products)’(Committee for the