Indonesia National Press Day

Today is Indonesia’s National Press Day. The Jakarta Post has a grim reflection about it:

If  you are a journalist in Indonesia, there is really little to celebrate but plenty to be worried about on National Press Day today. The future of our profession is in doubt because journalism, which has thrived on bad news, is now being bombarded by bad news about itself.

Journalism is coming under attack from left and right, inside and out. Newspapers, which gave journalists their first platform, are no longer the main drivers of news. That role has now been fully taken over by television, the Internet and radio, all of which give news literally as it happens and in audio-visual format. Abroad, newspapers are closing down. In Indonesia, newspaper readership stagnates at best.

Broadcast journalists do not fare all that much better. News programs have been squeezed out of the peak hours by the more profitable entertainment programs. Relegated to unsocial hours, news has been reduced to one-sentence tickers at the bottom of your TV screen, or a-few-second sound bytes.

The Internet may have democratized the news industry and allowed more players, but almost anything goes on the web today, so much so that it undermines the one thing that has made journalism in the past a public service profession: credibility.

Well, why not the Jakarta Post journalists go blogging themselves to find out or to make sure whether internet media lacks in credibility or not as they assume.