08/11/2007
Sasa Djuarsa Sendjaja: Giving the KPI back its teeth
The Jakarta Post
Features - May 03, 2007
Camelia Pasandaran, Contributor, Jakarta
When Sasa Djuarsa Sendjaja was elected as the new chairman of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission last April 9, he was not given Julius Caesar's Roman Empire as the commission had been stripped of almost all of its powers, including the authority to issue permits as stipulated in the broadcasting law.
But that does not discourage the father of four, who believes that amending the broadcasting law would resolve the authority dispute once and for all.
"If the KPI doesn't have the authority to produce regulations and issue permits, TV stations will pay no heed to warnings issued by the commission against indecent TV programs," said Sasa, who holds a Ph.D in mass communications from Ohio State University.
The government virtually stripped the KPI of its powers after it issued regulations that effectively placed public broadcasting under its jurisdiction, a move seen by experts as running against the 2002 Broadcasting Law.
He said his commission would ask the House to amend the law and return the commission's authority and power. He did not give any timetable.
Sasa is not new to the TV industry. He conducted research on television for his thesis and dissertation and was a KPI member for the 2004-2006 period.
"I was thinking of returning to campus, but then I decided to stay on as there is lots of unfinished work at the commission," said the 58-year-old, who was a University of Indonesia lecturer before joining the KPI in 2002.
Sasa, who loves spending the weekend with his family, particularly expressed concerns over the violence, mysticism and explicit sexual material being shown on TV.
"Even in liberal countries like America, television programs have core values and moral messages," said Sasa, who did an internship research associate and program staffer at Channel 34 in Ohio .
The TV industry in Indonesia , according to him, has changed a lot since he carried out research on TV's implication for social communications networks in the 1980s. At the time, state-owned TVRI was the only TV station around and only a few houses had television sets.
Now as private TV stations grow and media moguls rise, TV stations seem to do everything they can to boost program ratings at the expense of the quality of the programs themselves.
"Broadcast media use scarce frequencies that belong to the public, therefore there must be a regulation for them to ensure it is used to serve the interests of the public. It is true that they need commercials to survive, but it should not be the main consideration in selecting programs to broadcast," he said.
Sasa, who was born in Garut, West Java , participated in the drafting of the broadcasting bill in 1998, and which the government enacted into law in 2002.
Looking back at the KPI's work in the first period, Sasa said the commission was in the middle of too many disputes with national TV stations and the government, preventing the commission from fully carrying out its mission to serve the public.
For this reason, Sasa feels that a shift in the commission's policies is a must.
"As for now, we don't want to make regulations on our own, we want to discuss with all the stakeholders, listen to their input and formulate the regulations together. It will not be a one-agency show," he said.
He admitted, however, that previous KPI members had done all these things before, but expressed optimism that the KPI under his leadership would yield more results as it aimed to destroy the communication breakdown between the government and media.
"Let just say we are more compromising. Life is not black and white. It is gray. The principle is a win-win solution for all."
According to Sasa, the KPI must communicate with its stakeholders through a sharing approach, not power.
"The essence of communication is sharing, the use of power cannot resolve problems," he stressed. He also said that the KPI needed to resolve the conflicts as soon as possible so that they could start their work.
Although he promised as "softer" approach, he said that KPI's vision of Indonesian broadcasting system would stay the same. Diversity and quality in programming as well as diversity in ownership and localized TV stations are still the goals of the KPI under Sasa's leadership.
Being friendly to the Information and Communications Ministry doesn't mean he is just going to stand still in the face of government efforts to silence the commission. In the near future -- after his judicial review is rejected by the Constitutional Court -- he will propose a judicial review to the Supreme Court against all government regulations which contradict the broadcasting act.
He also said that the KPI would effectively use a memorandum of understanding with the police that stated that the police would start the judiciary process if a TV station disobeys three consecutive warnings issued by the KPI.
"I don't care if the media are more afraid of the police than to us, as long as the regulations are obeyed," he said.
Aside from the content, Sasa said he wanted to enforce a stipulation in the broadcasting bill that basically "forces" Jakarta-based TV stations to team up with local TV stations if they want to enter local market.
Under the existing broadcasting law, all private TV stations are virtually local stations. Should they go national they have to set up local (provincial or regency) units or team up with provincial or regency TV stations. That stipulation, however, has not been implemented due to, among others, strong opposition from Jakarta-based TV stations.
Sasa said he would conduct a forum to discuss the issue so that Jakarta-based TV stations could talk face-to-face with local TV stations.
He expressed optimism that the discussion would succeed as the KPI was backed by local administrations, local parliament and local TV owners
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