Jakarta – An organization of journalists urged the local media Tuesday to be impartial in its coverage of the Jakarta gubernatorial election.
"We found that newspapers often cover stories that give more benefit to the candidates than the people," a member of the advocacy team of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), Umar Idris, told a press conference.
The conclusion was based on an analysis on more than 500 news articles published by six daily newspapers, Indo Pos, Media Indonesia, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Republika and The Jakarta Post, from June 12 to July 20.
According to the analysis, the six newspapers raised five major issues in the gubernatorial election: campaigning by governor hopefuls; the activities of the Jakarta Elections Commission and the Election Supervisory Committee; problems with voter registration; public responses to the gubernatorial election; and the issue of independent candidates running in the election.
Umar said the stories mainly addressed the concerns of the political elite from both campaign teams, rather than dealing with the problems that hamper the city's development, such as flooding, traffic congestion and unemployment.
He said only a few of the examined articles looked into the programs proposed by the gubernatorial candidates to solve these issues.
Leo Batubara from the Association of Newspaper Publishers said the AJI's analysis of the newspapers' coverage showed it was fulfilling its role as a media watchdog. However, he said, AJI should also critically analyze television and radio stations' coverage.
He said that it was particularly necessary to do such an analysis because television and radio stations had exclusive rights to use a limited number of broadcast frequencies.
"We can only blame newspapers that are not impartial because they lack professionalism, but television and radio stations are expected to be absolutely independent," he told the Post.
The 2002 Law on Broadcasting requires every broadcasting company to be neutral and independent in its coverage and is backed up by penalties. The 1999 Press Law, which is often used as the main reference for print media, does not stipulate punishment or sanctions.
Both the poll commission and the supervisory body earlier warned the media not to publish the candidates' programs before the official start of the campaign period on July 22.
A political communication expert at the University of Indonesia, Harsono Suwandi, said it was too early for the AJI to issue its critical analysis of newspapers' coverage of the gubernatorial election because the election was still underway.
"(The AJI) should issue its analysis at the end of the process to have a comprehensive examination," he said.
The AJI was set up in 1994 by young journalists dissatisfied by the way government-sanctioned Indonesian Journalists Association (PWI) responded to the government closure of the weeklies Tempo, Detak and Editor.