N.B. This was published in The Lobbyist (April 26) where I write a column (Subtext).
JAKARTA, Indonesia – A journalist’s everyday challenge is to make the uninteresting interesting and, to paraphrase an old saying, “to make what matters matter”. A committed journalist tries his or her best to report on what is perceived to be insignificant in a way that it gets “packaged” as significant.
As regards reporting the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) whose secretariat is located here, the bigger challenge is to make “less boring” an organization that usually resorts to diplomatic jargon in its dealings not only with representatives of the 10 member-countries but also with the press. A quick review of selected press releases from the ASEAN (which may be retrieved from aseansec.org) shows a propensity for general policy statements that do not dwell on specifics and avoid confrontational statements.
One could say that it is good for ASEAN resort to such polite treatment to maintain the peace and consequently avoid war among its 10 member-countries united both by physical location and a common vision for a long-term, productive relationship within and beyond the region. The ASEAN, after all, was established on August 8, 1967 amid the turmoil and conflict in the region. However, one may also counter-argue that ASEAN ends up not doing anything as it simply acknowledges and takes note of problems without any clear and decisive action toward solving them.
Not surprisingly, the ASEAN has been dubbed through the years as a mere “talk shop” where government officials gather to just simply meet and deliberate. This is most especially the case when it comes to controversial ones like border disputes and human rights violations. Aside from “talk shop,” another pejorative term used against the ASEAN is “paper tiger” which is a strong statement of how allegedly useless it is in looking after the rights and welfare of the ASEAN peoples.
But is the ASEAN really a useless and hopeless organization? A journalist’s responsibility is to report on its action (or inaction) in a way that can make audiences understand what the ASEAN is doing (or not doing). The tendency to use jargon may be a weakness for the organization, but a journalist should try his or her best to transcend the diplomatic lingo and to constantly ask probing questions to the concerned ASEAN officials and country representatives.
More than the annual summits (the 18th of which is scheduled this year), there are many ASEAN-related issues that journalists could cover.
For example, the plans of Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea to become the ASEAN’s 11th and 12th members are worth covering in the sense that being part of ASEAN means adherence to its mutual vision of development. The latter, in essence, embraces the thrust of globalization and its three tenets (i.e., liberalization, deregulation and privatization). Just like the other member-countries, Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea would need to open their economies if they become part of ASEAN. What would happen to the economic development of these two countries? In particular, how would Timor Leste deal with Indonesia, an ASEAN founding member-country, which opposed its independence campaign?
The killings of journalists in the ASEAN should also be widely reported. The somewhat “good” news is that, so far, no journalist has been killed due to his or her work in Brunei, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore (though one can counter-argue that many journalists there are intimidated and harassed in other ways like censorship and imprisonment). But what’s the “bad” news for the ASEAN’s other member-countries? From 1992 to early 2011, data from the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) shows that 100 journalists have been killed in the line of duty – 1 from Vietnam; 3 from Myanmar; 8 each from Cambodia and Thailand; 9 from Indonesia; and a staggering 71 from the Philippines. Clearly, the Philippines accounts for almost three-fourths of journalists killed in ASEAN from 1992 to early 2011: It is actually second in terms of incidences of killings of journalists worldwide, next to Iraq with 149 journalists killed in the line of duty. Indeed, the issue is worth reporting as the figures are very alarming.
In terms of global context, the facts speak for themselves: A journalist should keep in mind that based on its sheer size alone, the ASEAN is globally important as it has a combined population of 583.5 million, a land area of 4.4 million square meters and a total trade (i.e., exports plus imports) of US$1.5 trillion. In the final analysis, there’s nothing “boring” therefore about a big organization that can be a major player in the global arena.
How can a journalist effectively report this context? That’s where the challenge lies…
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Author’s disclosure: Fifteen journalists from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, Timor Leste and Vietnam are here at the Hotel Gran Mahakam from April 25 until May 8 to participate in a seminar-workshop titled “Reporting on Regional Integration in Southeast Asia: History, Institutions and Policies of ASEAN” where I am a guest speaker. This seminar-workshop – the eighth since 2008 – is organized by the International Institute for Journalism (IIJ) of GIZ, Federal Foreign Office of Germany and ASEAN Secretariat. Many of the points raised in this article are based on the analysis of ASEAN published in the handbook titled “The ASEAN Guide: A Journalist’s Handbook to Reintegration in Southeast Asia” which I co-authored with Dr. Martin Löffelholz, professor and chair of the Department of Media Studies at Ilmenau University of Technology in Germany and a trainer at the seminar-workshop.