Journalism

As a news editor, everyday I receive at least 13 news to be broadcasted on news program called Buletin Jawa Barat. In some news—especially about disaster, or traditional culture preservation—sometimes written that government should take responsibility to fix it. Partially, it is true. Holistically, it was not only government’s responsibility. I’ll decipher it to you.

Last April, I met the governor of West Java, Ridwan Kamil. He said that his leading style uses principle called ABCGM. Ridwan named it as pentahelix principle. It contains 5 sectors that contributed to social condition: Academics, Bussiness, Community, Government, Media. So much so that collaboration become stronger, there was held a monthly meeting between Government and Media—whom I am part of the media industry.

In one session of question and answer, a TV journalist asked Ridwan Kamil to prepare one Skype team to accommodate live interview request from his central office. Ridwan knew that condition, for he was the media darling. He said, press often asks a direct comment of several governmental issues. Even though he delegated his team. Media crew always said, “it’s a different taste if the song is not sang by the singer”. 

There was also one interesting statement from the governor. He asked by the online journalist for not to publish his program through social media at the first place. Jokingly said, Ridwan chuckled about “how his follower on instagram would have an updates?”

Competition of journalism, still defined as the race of being the first one in informing news to audience. Yet social media challenged it. In one interview, a journalist from Philipines, Maria Ressa, said that the function of media (and journalist) as gatekeeper has now been outdated. People can instantly get the information from their social media account. The gate is not kept anymore.

Even so, right after the meeting ends, I have a chat with Ridwan Kamil. I asked him one question: how could journalism be survive? He said in this age of flooding information, the key is accuracy. Now, he prioritize that a source of information should come from the media. He also remind, that one way to determine whether some information is hoax or not, is by check it on the big (or mainstream) media. If it was not appeared, then it could be a false news. []