(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
public is highly relevant for professional journalists, because journalism was dedicated
to the public interest. Even journalists really work to serve the public.
The requirements of high professionalism of journalists are intended for journalists to
work for the public interest to build democracy. McNair said, “that journalism is a key
resource in supporting our role as citizens in societies which claim to value the
democratic process” (McNair, 1998, p. 16-17). Journalists and journalism work for the
advantages of humankind. Rosen elaborated the task of journalism as follows:
“journalism as a willing sponsor of public talk, an invitation to participate, a convener
of civic activity, a guide to problem solving, a constructive art for a strengthened
democracy-these were some of the ideas added to an existing creed” (Rosen, 1999, p.
6). Because that is a very noble task, journalism could not be done haphazardly.
Findings
The contributors who became informants in this research generally have worked for a
private TV station about three to five years. They live in Jakarta and outside of Jakarta.
Among the contributors, there was contributor who had educational background in
communication or journalism, but most of them graduated from various fields like
engineering, economy, and so on. Among the informants there was an informant who
got the job for the firs time and contributor as a first job. There were also informants
who worked previously before they were assigned as the contributors. It was interesting
to know their previous job, because they came from various occupations. Among those
who had worked, there were people who had worked as a print journalist and several
contributors worked in the non journalistic field previously.
Requirement for news contributor was not difficult indeed. The main requirement was
the candidate must have cameras. If someone had a camcorder and he could write
stories, then he would be easily recruited as a contributor. Even if there were people
who had helped contributor or become a stringer for the contributors, then he would
also easily become new contributors. So there was an apprentice who had been a
stringer for old contributor. There was an interesting thing about the terminology of
stringer here. The stringer was someone who hired by the contributor and the stringer
did not have a contract with the TV station. The stringer only dedicated and be
responsible to the contributor who had a wide coverage area.
Not all contributors received journalism training from the TV station, and it happened
for some reasons. There was a station only provide training for certain contributors like
good or dedicated contributors. There was also station did not conduct training for
contributors. The training was carried out by the station was only basic training such as
basic journalism and basic video production. Many contributors studied journalism,
video production and video editing independently by watching TV news or learning it
to their friends. Therefore, they got their understanding and knowledge of television
journalism from the field.
The contributors were working everyday to look for news in their respective work
areas, but they did not get the news everyday. Sometimes on certain days there is no
news that could be made, but sometimes within a day they could produce more than
416