Journos
can help ensure informed and rational vote
Endy
Bayuni ; Senior editor at The Jakarta Post
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JAKARTA
POST, 27 Februari 2014
General
elections, whether in the context of democracy or not, do not guarantee the
right leaders. At best, we can say that we get the leaders we deserve.
The post-Soeharto elections in 1999, 2004
and 2009 could be regarded as reflecting the wishes of the people as they
were conducted in a democratic setting. The media played an important though
not a decisive role in their outcomes.
The
media’s biggest contribution is in informing voters of the available choices.
We inform them about the parties and candidates, their vision and platforms
and their background and track records. If there are past scandals with the
candidates, we will uncover them.
In
addition, the media helps to ensure as far as possible that the outcome of
the elections is based on informed and rational choices. The more information we provide, the more
rational voters will be in making their choices. They are less likely to make
mistakes.
Looking
at the elections in Indonesia and elsewhere around the world, we learn voters
sometimes make the wrong choices by voting for the wrong people. In
established democracies this is not a problem thanks to a built-in
self-correction mechanism. In emerging democracies, voting for the wrong
candidate or party can be disastrous.
Egypt
is a good example. The first post-Mubarak elections gave power to the Muslim
Brotherhood faction, only for the military to step in and take back power.
Tragically, an election gone sour killed the democracy that emerged from the
2011 Arab Spring.
Thailand,
one of the first Southeast Asian nations to go the democratic way, is on the
verge of losing its democracy because the elected government has little
legitimacy, even as it wins election after election. Many Thais have lost
faith in democracy.
Many
in Indonesia today also feel they were wrong to give President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono a second presidential mandate in 2009. They did not know then that
his inner circle would be so corrupt. But most people are prepared to sit it
out and wait until he finishes his term in October. They still have faith in
democracy.
Democracy
is supposed to have a built-in self-correcting mechanism. If you get it wrong
this time, you can correct it a few years later. This is true even with the
oldest democracy in the world, the United States, when Americans realized it
was a mistake to have returned George W. Bush to office in 2004. Those
dismayed with President Barrack Obama’s leadership are now looking at 2016 to
elect a new president.
This
self-correcting mechanism also worked in Indonesia. Not in Egypt or
Thailand.
If
we agree that the media play an important role in elections, the media then
are also responsible for their outcome. Consequently, in many of the
elections that produced the wrong outcomes, we should blame the media for
failing in their job. This has a lot to do with the ethics of the media in
covering general elections.
This
is not an invitation to ask the academic question of “if we knew then what we
know now”, would the result have been any different? But democracy went sour
in Egypt and Thailand because voters, who were not fully informed by the
media of their choices and of the consequences of their decisions, put the
wrong leaders in office.
Journalists
should take the question of ethics more seriously, particularly in covering
elections. Egypt and Thailand tell us the failure of journalists in living up
to their task of informing voters to make rational choices can be disastrous
for the people and democracy.
In
nascent democracies, we cannot rely on the self-correcting mechanism to kick
in. It did not in Egypt or Thailand. Going by the grumbling, it is barely
working in Indonesia.
Ethics
govern all modern professions. They set professional standards and benchmarks
for those who practice the knowledge and skills they require for their trade.
Compliance with these ethics is what sets them apart from others.
One
of the earliest professions to set their codes is medicine, with its
Hippocratic Oath that has kept in its modern version to this day. For
doctors, the oath is supreme because they deal with matters of life and
death.
Journalism
also involves life and death questions. Certainly democracy died in Egypt,
and is dying in Thailand, because of media failures in observing their
ethics. Journalism is one of the few professions underpinned by public trust.
Trust is the chief currency in our profession.
People
believe in what we report because of this trust. Journalism and the media
have spent considerable years gaining this public trust by building our
credibility. Observing the ethics of the profession is an important part of
winning this trust.
Sadly,
the credibility of journalism is increasingly being questioned by members of
the public, mostly for our lack of ethics. We betray the trust, we suffer the
consequences.
We
have plenty of examples of how ethics have gone out of the window due to
bottom line pressures; fierce competition, now made even more complex with
the intrusion of social media; increasing intervention from media owners with
business or political interests; or simply from a lack of competence and
training of the journalists.
Journalism
is an open profession, and the Internet has made it even more open that
anyone who disseminates information, irrespective of quality, to a mass
audience is by definition, a journalist. In Indonesia, the Press Council has
begun certification for journalists, requiring them to take professional
tests, to ensure compliance with ethics and thus prop up the credibility of
the profession.
In
the end, however, it is not the license we tout or the training and the years
of experience we claim, that define whether you are a credible journalist or
not. We have seen examples of fully certified senior journalists behaving
unethically, including in the coverage of elections, just as we have seen
bloggers and citizen journalists who gain credibility and popularity because
they observe the ethics.
The
public, not the professional associations or the government, decide whether
you are a credible journalist or not.
Indonesia
will have a general election this year and Myanmar will have a historic poll
sometime in 2015. Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia have just had their
elections. The Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) forum offers an
opportunity for journalists to exchange stories of how they work, and find
out about the best practices of reporting the elections in ethical ways.
Journalists
are not players in these elections, but as citizens, we have a stake in the
future of our nation, its freedom and democracy. We have a moral obligation,
through our work as journalists, to make sure these polls produce as best
result as possible for the nation.
Our
best contribution to these elections is to make sure that people vote based
on informed and rational choices. ●
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