(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
one news. Each news that was sent to the newsroom was not necessarily aired by the
station. Contributors would receive money only if their news were broadcasted by the
station.
The contributors created own system to get the news when working in the field. They
managed their activity by themselves. It was adapted to the conditions of their
respective work areas. To determine which events should be chosen to report was more
decided by their feeling. The direction to do their job only came from the short written
guidance which provided by each station. Determining newsworthiness, choosing news
source persons or writing news angle were the prerogative of the contributors. They
worked in the field independently, so their work was not governed by a news producer
from TV newsrooms. Even they did not know the news producer who evaluated and
agreed their news. In addition, the contributors also did not know the reason why their
news was not aired on television. However, paradoxically when the contributors
worked in the field, they formally represented a station. They also used ID cards when
covered the event and introduced as a TV reporter who represented the certain station
when interviewed source person.
To increase their capacity, they shared knowledge with other contributors. Generally
they were incorporated in the mailing list of contributors from the same station. This
means they could communicate and shared opinions with other contributors from all
over Indonesia. In addition, this mailing list was also used by the newsroom's
representative to provide new information or input on the performance of contributors.
Another forum was a mailing list of the contributors from the same city. Although they
were contributors who worked for different TV stations, but they really were friends.
Even through the mailing list of contributors of this town they talked to each other
about the events that could be covered together.
Another example, the contributors in Sukabumi worked together with their counterpart
from print media to develop another forum in the real world, but this forum was
intended to show that they were a journalist representing the official media. The forum
was also built to show their existence as the real journalists, they showed it to their
public that they were not bad guys who claimed as journalists. It is important thing for
them, because many people claimed their status as journalists, whereas they pretend to
be journalists to pressure, blackmail and intimidate many executives from local
government or others else in order to get money.
Discussion and Conclusion
Refer to definition of journalist from International Federation of Journalist (IFJ), the
news contributors in Indonesia could be categorized as journalists. They did news
reporting, writing, and video production almost everyday. Their activities in journalism
have already shown the clear functions and forms of TV journalism as described by
Josephi. They “devoted the greater part of his/her working time to the profession of
journalism” (Josephi, 2009, p. 143). They also got salary from their activities in
journalism. Nevertheless, they do not always get fixed salary each month.
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