Jakarta – Media companies are failing to provide their journalists with adequate assistance when they encounter violence in their work.

"Most media companies do not go "all-out" to defend or assist their journalists who have suffered from violence during their news coverage," Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) secretary general Jajang Jamaludin said in Jakarta on Friday.

In a discussion titled "Media Strategies to Face Violent Cases Against Journalists", Jajang said the protection of journalists, through the assistance of legal groups and journalist associations, should be a top priority for media companies.

"Journalism is a respected profession. The public has the right to information, and this right will be threatened if the profession continues to be under pressure," he said.

The AJI reported that since August 2007, one third of cases involving the suppression of free press in Indonesia were related to physical violence toward journalists.

This statistic has contributed to Indonesia's plummeting position in the Reporter Sans Frontier's World Freedom of Press Index. Indonesia slid from 100th last year to 111th in 2008.

Anggara, an advocate for the Association of Indonesian Legal and Human Rights Aid, said it was hard for journalists who have experience violence in their careers to deal with the problem alone, particularly if their employer offered no assistance.

"Very often media companies do not protect reporters. In some cases, the reporters have even been told to apologize to those who attacked them," said Press Council member Abdullah Amaludin. "We have to force media companies' stakeholders to provide legal assistance for their journalists," he said.

Members at the discussion agreed that resolving these issues of mistreatment would have to involve media companies, whose primary role should include assistance from lawyers and insurance teams. (pmf)