CHALLENGES AND WEAKNESSES OF JOURNALISM TODAY

By Akhmad Kusaeni

Journalism’s watchdog role has long been seen as critical to its mission of informing the public. When print periodicals first emerged in England in the 17th century out of the coffeehouse salon culture, they saw their role as investigatory. The Parliament Scout, which began publication in 1643, did more than publish rumors or reprint official words, it made an effort to search out and discover the news.
The Parliament Scout, for the first time, making the affair of government more transparent. Before the journal appeared, the internal workings of government were primarily the knowledge of the privileged-those with business before the state or those directly involved in the administration of government. The general public’s information on their rulers largely came from uninformed gossip. This new periodical told the people what the government actually did. In the process they established investigate reporting as one of the earliest principle of journalism.
“It was the watchdog role that made journalism,” said James Madison. (The History of the Watchdog Mission, Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2003).
Today, a new generation of investigator journalists gave voice to reform at the local, state, federal, regional and international levels. Their detailed investigation and exposure of corrupt power, ranging from child labor abuses to urban political machines and railroad and oil trust, led to a progressive movement in national politics.
But, in the other hand, looking at the global media trend nowadays, investigative journalism is facing new challenges. In my opinion, one of the major challenges (or weaknesses) of journalism today is how easily some are seduced by power. The premier role of the journalist should be as a check on power, however, many seem to turn this dictum on its head and get greater job satisfaction as parrots of the official truth.
The willingness of journalists to accepts the establishment’s view of the events of, and after, 9/11 is truly staggering and disappointing. On war against terrorism, for instance, U.S. media become a megaphone for Bush administration.
But, in Britain, the story is different. The United Kingdom national broadcasters (BBC) could use Iraq war to cultivate its dominant self-image of impartial professionalism and its excellence on investigative reporting. Take the Blair-BBC-Kelly “war” case as an example.
After the war being won by US and Britain coalition forces, Andrew Gilligan of BBC, was trying to investigate the reason for invading Iraq, especially the non-discovery of WMD. He interviewed Dr. David Kelly, a member of the intelligence community, who told Gilligan that “most people in intelligence were dissatisfied with the government’s September dossier on Iraq’s weapon”. David Kelly then committed suicide after his name made public by official in Blair administration.
In the light of the performance of companies like Fox News, which lost its credibility by making itself a tool of Bush administration propaganda, I praise what BBC and Andrew Gilligan has been done. Because the Britain government’s decision to go to war and justification for it deserved the closest possible scrutiny, and a defense correspondence like Gilligan who failed to raise these matters would be failing in his duty. Mr. Gilligan report was a classic example of investigative reporting on a matter of public interest.

How about investigative reporting in Indonesia? There are plenty of cases to be subject of investigative reporting. For example, the riot on May 1998 which lead to the fall of Soeharto, the riot on 27 July 1996 which lead to Chairman of PDIP Party Megawati Soekarnoputri to come to power, corruption that involved Indonesian elites, money politics, illegal logging, etc. But, unfortunately, the media were not giving its reporters to do the job. Most of Indonesian journalists were not brave enough to do investigative reporting because it need hard work and take times.
Only a few media in Indonesia have experienced this special reporting, such as Tempo magazine. But Tommy Winata sued Tempo for publishing its investigative reporting on involvement of this conglomerate to the fire accident of Tanah Abang market. Before the biggest textile market complex in Jakarta set on fire, Tommy Winata has a proposal to rebuild Tanah Abang market. This has made public aware about the possibility that Tanah Abang market was deliberately set on fire in order to rebuild it by Tommy Winata.