TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Chairman of the Alliance of Independent Journalists [AJI] Eko Maryadi said the media in Indonesia during the recent Presidential election was in an 'alarming condition' as many of them became partisan media and spread propaganda.

"This is alarming. It ruins the credibility of the media and the public had lost trust to them," Eko said earlier, adding that the media should have held the principles of neutrality and independence and their owners must not have intervened in the newsroom.

Unfortunately, Eko pointed out, the two principles were violated by many media, be it printed media, online or TV stations.

"[The principles are] especially [violated by] TV stations because they use public frequency, while printed media can be tolerated because consumers do not have to buy the papers," Eko said.

Therefore, AJI called on a more strict regulation over those TV and radio stations so that they would not be used to spread propaganda.

Eko said AJI had actually allowed media to be used to spread propaganda as long as they officially declare their support for a certain presidential candidate or a political party.

"TVOne for example. It declared support ing Golkar Party, while Metro TV declares its support for the National Democratic [Nasdem] Party. That way, the public will understand to which party/presidential candidate those TV stations side with," Eko said.

Eko hoped that the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission [KPI] and the Press Council would prevent this phenomenon from happening again and that the two institutions would be able to take a firm action against those media.

"[Unfortunately], those media have only been reprimanded, without being given sanctions," Eko added.

SUNDARI