Healthy Journalism Guides Public in Making Decisions

The people\'s need for quality information will continue in the future. Journalism must prioritize the public interest and always promote the importance of verifying information.

KOMPAS/HENDRA A SETYAWAN

Historian Asvi Warman Adam (center) and Chairman II of the Indonesian Veterinary Association Board Tri Satya Putri Naipospos (left) received the award of dedicated scholars during the celebration of the 55th Anniversary of Kompas Daily in Jakarta, Sunday (28/6/2020). The award was given by the Chief Editor of Kompas Sutta Dharmasaputra.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS - Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, public confidence in the information provided by the mainstream media has improved.

This momentum must be maintained by applying responsible journalism with a discipline of verification and code of ethics in favor of public interest. The public needs healthy journalism as a guide in making decisions and in maintaining democracy.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, trust in the newsroom-based media is improving. The 2020 Reuters Institute Digital News Report showed that in April, the level of public trust in information and news about the new coronavirus originating from news organizations was ranked fourth.

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This position was below those recorded by doctors and scientists, national health organizations and global health organizations. As many as 59 percent of respondents said they trusted mainstream media. Meanwhile, in comparison, in the 2019 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, trust in news media reached 42 percent, down 2 percent from the previous year.

A lecturer at Multimedia Nusantara University (UMN), Samiaji Bintang Nusantara, when contacted on Sunday night, said public trust in news room-based media tended to strengthen amid an influx of information because there was a growing number of people looking for fact-based references.

The correct and fact-based information is needed by policymakers in the public sector. Reportage-based, in-depth and even investigation-based information is needed as a reference in a decision-making.

He believes that such a trend will continue in the future. The public will be willing to pay for quality information. Beyond the pandemic, Bintang said that trust in quality journalism would also increase when democracy is under threat.

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KOMPAS/WISNU WIDIANTORO

The front page of various newspapers published in Jakarta as seen on May 22. (22/5/2019)

Meanwhile, according to a researcher of the Institute for Press Studies and Development, Ignatius Haryanto, in a democracy, an informed society is needed. The public needs correct information so they can make right and good decisions.

"They make a decision on complete information, not information that is one-sided, partisan in nature," Haryanto said.

Haryanto warned that the mass media must be able to keep a distance from power.

"All governments, whoever they are, need to be criticized and the media needs to keep a distance so that they can be objective and can convey information about things that are needed by the public. Don\'t become partisan. If it becomes partisan, the media will not be trusted by the public," Haryanto said.

Public responsibility

The chairman of the Indonesian Journalists Association (PWI), Atal Depari, said the mass media should be primarily responsible to the public. Values that promote and protect the interest of the public and the nation should be further promoted through journalistic work.

All of such journalistic work should be well prepared by teamwork in the newsroom involving not just one or two people, but many people. They help ensure that the content produced is in accordance with a code of ethics and has a good quality that can bring benefits to the public.

The growing concerns about social media, which is often used as a means of spreading false information, indicates that the people need healthy journalism based on a code of ethics that can prevent the news media from spreading lies or disinformation, said the chairman of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), Abdul Manan.

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"One of the challenges is whether our journalism will continue to be loyal to the principles of journalism or even be pragmatic and imitate social media. Click bait news that is used by social media to attract attention has also been used by conventional media to survive, even though in fact, it is based on the recipes of the social media,” he said.

Besides being loyal to good journalistic practices, according to Manan, the mainstream media must also be adaptive to the digital era, especially in packaging and business strategies. Good journalism may not survive not because of the bad quality of the journalism but due to its inability to innovate and to make the right strategies in packaging and marketing.

Kompas/Hendra A Setyawan

Ade, 56, continues to sell newspapers on March 27, amid the Covid-19 pandemic. (27/3/2020).

New balance

A member of the Press Council, Agus Sudibyo, said that in general, there were two developing theories in coping with the disruption of technology and information. The first theory says that IT disruption will cause the old media to disappear altogether.

However, the second theory states that disruption will create a new balance, which leads to the differentiation. At the end, the community will realize the weakness of social media and the role of the conventional media.

"People may see that the role of social media is only limited to chatting, light discussion forums or gossiping. The mass media based on journalism is a place to find information, news and discourse as now found in the conventional media,” he said.

As long as it is consistent with the principles of good journalism, the future for journalism will still be there.

Agus believes that the second theory will come into reality. The new balance will be established on conditions that conventional media is not involved in spreading lies and disinformation.

"As long as it is consistent with the principles of good journalism, the future for journalism will still be there," Agus said.

In addition to maintaining the principles of good journalism, the mainstream media can still survive if there are fair regulations. In Indonesia, for example, social media platforms have not been regulated by a code of ethics, law and accountability for the information it disseminates.

That is different, for example, with a mainstream media that is bound by a code of ethics and responsibility for the information it publishes.

According to Agus, the difference in treatment benefits social media platforms because they do not have to be responsible for the uploaded content, in contrast to conventional media, which is bound by a code of ethics.

Advocacy

University of Indonesia Lecturer of communication studies at the University of Indonesia, Irwansyah, said that advocacy should be ideally promoted to eliminate the differences between the conventional news media and the social media at the international level. It is important to ensure fair industrial relations between newsroom-based media and social media in terms of content.

According to him, content on social media platforms not only comes from their users but also from newsroom-based media. Irwansyah calls for the use of an international legal approach to ensure that the social media companies that have a wide audience are required to follow a set of rules and ethics.

Such a requirement should be imposed on all social media-based media companies. Collaboration is, therefore, needed.