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Seeking a media outlet free of the chains of corporate ownership, a group of journalists is planning to develop a Web site that will carry stories conventional news organizations dare not touch.

Wahyu Dhyatmika, chairman of the Jakarta chapter of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), said he hoped the site could provide an alternative outlet for journalists to post sensitive documents or evidence deemed too “dangerous” to be published in their own media.

“In short, it would be similar to WikiLeaks,” he told the Jakarta Globe on Thursday, referring to the Sweden-based organization that publishes sensitive material and protects the anonymity of its sources. “We hope that in the future, all Indonesian journalists can engage and really benefit from this Web site and that will eventually strengthen our independent journalism.”

The Web site, which AJI Jakarta plans to launch in early August to coincide with its anniversary, is supported by the group’s chapters in Denpasar, Semarang, Surabaya, Malang and Pekanbaru.

Wahyu and 17 other AJI members recently completed a three-week course at the Radio Netherlands Training Center on how new media can support independent journalism.

He said that although Indonesia’s media had enjoyed 12 years of relative freedom since President Suharto stepped down on May 21, 1998, it did not mean that the threat was gone.

AJI Jakarta sees editorial interference by media owners as the new threat to press freedom. In a discussion the group organized in March, media analyst Ignatius Haryanto said “media conglomerate owners have become a threat because they now exercise the control that the government had in the old days.”

The media industry grew exponentially after 1998 when the government gave up its tight control through press permits and content reviews. There are now more than 2,000 radio stations, 1,000 print publications (magazines, tabloids and newspapers), 115 television stations and a growing number of online news portals. However, about 10 prominent business groups control the majority.

Wahyu, who is also a journalist at Tempo weekly magazine, said part of the problem was that most owners lacked a basic understanding of press freedoms.

“It goes for all media conglomerates across the country, which are getting even bigger now,” he said. “News stories produced by journalists but censored by [media] owners are nothing new anymore.”

And the fact that several of the country’s big media organizations were owned by prominent businessmen and political figures, put journalists in an even more difficult position, Wahyu said.

Some journalists, he said, had reported that they were forced by management not to write certain stories or not to use certain sources. “Thus, we are trying to find a way to solve the problem and we think that new media could actually provide us a platform on this matter,” Wahyu said.

Ignatius told the Globe on Thursday that while he supported the idea, journalists still risked losing their jobs for publishing censored stories. “AJI, as an organization, should fully support every journalist who submits their stories to this Web site,” he said, adding that contributors, for example, should be able to post content anonymously.

Wahyu acknowledged that implementing the project would be difficult — including protecting journalists and checking the facts of the stories submitted.

In line with that, he said it was also important to push the government to establish clear regulations on media ownership, and enforce laws that specifically protected newsrooms from internal and external interference.

On Wednesday, Minister of Communication and Information Technology Tifatul Sembiring said that despite the government’s intention to revive the controversial draft regulation on Internet and multimedia content, it would not include provisions restricting press freedoms. “I guarantee that the word ‘press’ will not even be in it,” he said. “But I can tell you, we will go ahead with this draft regulation.”



Additional reporting by Ismira Lutfia