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When I ask Indonesian bureaucrats about the latest proclamations from some environmental group, I often get the same question: “Why are you journalists so close to the activists?”

Is it true? Perhaps. Environmental journalists here love covering advocacy organizations and their strident accusations against the government. Sometimes, we become part of the protests or try to solve environmental problems ourselves.

Irvan Riza, a program editor at KBR68H Radio in Jakarta, says his newsroom grew tired of waiting for the government to act on deforestation so 68H joined the “Tree Adoption Program” in Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park, which aims to give locals an alternative to illegal logging. Managed by its sister station, Green Radio FM, revenues from 68H’s program allow villagers to plant trees, purchase livestock and install solar panels.

“By starting the project, we pushed the government to finally install electricity for the farmers we helped,” Irvan explained. When I suggested that the station’s involvement made activists out of the journalists, he rejected the label, arguing that because paid advertisements ran during the tree-adoption programming, it qualifies as a standard commercial enterprise, not advocacy.

Kalimantan Review, a monthly magazine, accepts the activist label. Launched in 1992 by the Institut Dayakologi, KR describes itself as “advocacy media” delivering information to indigenous Dayak people about palm plantations, mines and other projects that destroy local forests. During the Suharto era, it was semi-underground. The collapse of the regime in 1998 allowed KR to emerge openly, however, it continues to reflexively oppose most government actions.

“It’s hard for us, because we want to do what the press should do: cover both sides fairly,” chief editor Dominikus Uyub says. During the Suharto regime, most outlets quoted only pro-government sources, so he did the opposite. Because of that, KR has had trouble getting government voices on record and continues to give more space to “the people.”

The problem is that KR not only informs the locals, but also tries to defend and empower Dayaks. Therefore, KR accepts many local activists as contributors and gives them press identification cards after providing some journalism training.

That can lead to problems. Contributing writer Vitalis Andi was arrested in February 2010 over a public protest against Sinar Mas, which was opening a palm plantation in West Kalimantan. KR had sent Vitalis to cover the protest but the police charged him with vandalism. Sinar Mas brought charges against him. The editor said that Vitalis was an activist, which meant he could not be defended under the press law unless it could be proven Vitalis was there as journalist. Vitalis has served 10 months in jail and the case is still being fought out in the courts.

Veteran editor Aristides Katoppo of the Sinar Harapan newspaper said the strain of activism in environmental journalism is rooted in the creation by Suharto of what was then called the Ministry of Development and Environment in 1972 under respected economist Emil Salim.

Salim gathered journalists and whatever local experts he could find to pioneer environmental awareness in the country, forming an organization called the Group for Environmental Conservation of Indonesia, or Hukli. Salim thought journalists could add perspective on real environmental problems in the field.

Later, with Salim’s support, the experts formed the country’s first green NGO, known as Walhi. The journalists who were involved — like Aristides and others — pioneered green journalism despite the Suharto dictatorship.

This cozy relationship more or less ended when everyone finally realized that green also means money. After the 2007 UN climate change summit in Bali more ministries took an interest. Today, the Forestry and Environment ministries, the National Climate Change Council, the President’s Development Monitoring and Control Unit, the Economic Coordination Ministry, and the National Development Strategic Plan Agency all play a role in developing policies on the issue.

With more government bodies involved, green journalists have slowly lost their role in helping to formulate environmental policies and became outsiders alongside many activists. Still, environmental journalism is growing in Indonesia and not everyone agrees that activism should be part of that growth.

In 2006, the Society of Indonesian Environmental Journalists was formed as a professional non-advocacy membership organization (full disclosure: I sit on the organization’s board). SIEJ focuses on building the capacity of journalists to cover environmental issues, and not taking sides, so that more journalists can explain complicated issues in a balanced fashion.

Aristides thinks it’s fine for journalists to express their own views and sees nothing wrong with taking part in protests. “I don’t believe in the perspective of news just being news, because it treats people as a business commodity, with journalists in the role of selling [or sensationalizing] news about them,” he said. “We have to understand there’s a social responsibility along with every news story we publish.”

Aristides says that since many government or business entities run local media outlets, journalists staking out advocacy positions help to balance the news. “Objectivity in news means we have to base our story on truth and facts, but we should have a clear basis of taking the side of the public interest,” he said.

Many journalists disagree. Ignatius Haryanto, who teaches journalism at several universities, thinks there should be a clear line between being an activist and a reporter. Ignatius says it’s fine for journalists to have their own views, but they don’t belong in the news. He suggests that people like Vitalis Andi in Kalimantan choose one role or the other.

Environmental journalists seem divided on the issue but they are clearly playing a big role in a growing green movement: some by reporting the news, and others by choosing to act further.

Reprinted from the Columbia Journalism Review