Anita Rachman & Ismira Lutfia

Infotainment tabloids and TV shows are popular with Indonesians, even though they have drawn fire from Muslim organizations. (JG Photo/Jurnasyanto Sukarno)

Media Groups Defend Indonesia's Gossip Shows

Press organizations on Sunday denounced calls for the government to regulate or ban racy entertainment news programs, saying such a move smacked of censorship and harked back to the oppressive Suharto regime.

“Their existence is legitimate,” said Leo Batubara, chairman of the Press Council, referring to popular infotainment shows broadcast on private television stations. “There [instead] should be strong public control over the programs and sanctions imposed on the programs to reinforce better quality.”

He criticized calls last week by Hasyim Muzadi, chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, the country’s largest Muslim organization, for the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology to force TV stations to stop airing the shows. Hasyim’s stance was supported by Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali on Saturday.

“It would be the same as the New Order era,” Leo said.

The NU in 2006 issued a fatwa declaring infotainment haram, or forbidden under Islam. The Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) has also criticized the shows.

The debate over infotainment reared its head again after actress Luna Maya blasted the shows on the micro-blogging site Twitter earlier this month.

Nasaruddin Umar, director general for Islamic guidance at the Religious Affairs Ministry, claimed that the rising number of divorces in the country, which doubled from 100,000 to 200,000 a year over the past decade, was a result of the impact infotainment shows had on the public. He did not, however, produce any data to back up his claim.

“With infotainment exposing celebrity divorces, our public then thinks that divorce is just a normal thing,” Nasaruddin said.
“I think we should not make other people’s dirty laundry a commodity and reap benefits from it.”

Ezki Suyanto, a member of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), said the NU and the Religious Affairs Ministry should consider the negative effects a ban would have, such as employees of infotainment shows possibly losing their jobs.

“The only thing that needs to be done is to improve the [infotainment] employees’ skills,” she said.

Imam Wahyudi, chairman of the Indonesian Television Journalists Association (IJTI), said calls for a ban should be seen as a warning for infotainment programs to shape up.

“They should think about why they could be labeled as haram and are not considered as [real] journalism,” he said.

Wahyudi added that television programs about celebrities could still have news value as long as they remained in the public’s interests.

A recent case that Ezki cited was the launch of a book by singer Krisdayanti, where infotainment reporters chose to discuss her marital problems instead of the book.

“In fact, the book may contain positive information to be shared [with the public],” Ezki said.

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