(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
Mogensen had provided guidance to know what extent the professional journalist. He
suggested if journalist wanted to be professional, he/she should apply “the norms and
performance standards” (Mogensen, 2008, p. 33). In contrast, there was not an adequate
and complete norm and performance standard for contributors. The norm and
performance standard only elaborated shortly in the contract between contributors and
TV stations. The station only provided guidance in the form of 'do and do not' on the
contract from management or technical sides than journalism sides.
To know how professional the contributors, Broddason (1994) have provided the
criteria of professionalism consist of “collective control over entry into the profession,
an ethical code supported by self-policing, a special set of skills and a definable body of
knowledge, as well as client relations with the public”. Collective control to the
contributors was less since they were not involved in any professional organization of
journalists, whereas in Indonesia there are several associations of professional
journalists with the two largest organizations of the Alliance of Independent Journalists
(AJI) and the Indonesian Journalists Association (PWI). Because they did not join
professional organizations, the performance of the contributor in a professional manner
was also not controlled. There was no journalist organization that could guarantee their
professional performance. Only limited control they received from the newsroom
representatives. Collective control from the newsroom was only feedback on the work
of contributor and the written rules or written advice as mentioned either in the contract
or in the mailing list of contributors. Moreover, the newsroom's representative also had
the authority to reprimand contributors who broke the rule of work. Although the
newsroom had the authority to admonish the contributors, but the warnings were
mostly related to technical problems, than the problem of journalistic substance. It was
seen from the news program that violated the code of ethics as complained by many
people.
On the other hand, newsroom management has never controlled the contributors when
they worked in the field. All the things that happened in the field were entirely the
responsibility of contributors. It was also included in case of infringement in the field.
Due to the weak and limited control was many cases happened, it appears a violation of
code of conduct that resulted in one TV station was rebuked by the Indonesian
Broadcasting Commission. Whereas “a code of ethics would be essential in ensuring
that the distribution of information be regulated and disciplined” (Tumber & Prentoulis,
2005, p. 65).
The understanding of the code of ethics also improvised. They understood only the
basic of the code of ethics. For example, if they were covering the story, they should
not receive money or they had to be independent. This code was also written explicitly
in the contract. But there was also a contributor who had another opinions, he would
receive transport allowance from source person as long as the provider of the money
did not push him to make the specific content of news. This informant said it was only
natural and he would receive the money if only as a substitute for transport allowance.
Another example was the breaking of picture’s copyright. They sometime shared their
video image to their friends, so consequently there was no exclusive film for their news
and their news were quite similar. They did not have sense of belonging of their
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