Safrin La Batu, Jakarta – The Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) has called on television stations to improve their news programs by providing more balanced and independent content as its newest study finds that quality of news broadcast by stations in the country are still below its standard.
A KPI study released on Monday found that news programs in the country scored only 3.55, less than the minimum score of 4 the KPI set in order for a program type to be considered good quality.
"The main element that should be improved is 'balance' and 'independence'," KPI chairman Yuliandre Darwis said during the launch of the study in Central Jakarta.
The KPI study showed that "independence" and "balance" were the two lowest elements news programs scored on with only 3.11 and 3.12, respectively. Meanwhile, "factuality" – providing information based on facts, scored the strongest with 4.1, exceeding the KPI's minimum-quality standard.
Yuliandre said the Jakarta gubernatorial election, given its escalating political tension should be a time that television stations step up their quality of news programs, especially with closer attention paid to the elements of "independence" and "balance", if not, the scores might be lower in its upcoming study.
During the 2014 presidential election, some television stations differed in their quick count results, causing the public to believe that television stations were partial to the presidential candidate they said had one. (evi)