Jakarta. The national broadcasting watchdog has called on the Indonesian government to sanction two television news stations, MetroTV and tvOne, for imbalanced coverage on news surrounding the presidential election campaign.
MetroTV, a news channel under Media Group, which is owned by National Democratic Party (Nasdem) chairman Surya Paloh, has been reported for setting aside a large portion of its coverage on presidential candidate Joko Widodo and his running mate Jusuf Kalla, while tvOne, part of the VIVA Group owned by Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie, has been reported for providing more coverage on candidates Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa.
NasDem is part of the coalition of political parties in support of Joko, who is running on the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle’s (PDI-P) ticket, while Golkar is part of the coalition in support of Prabowo Subianto and his running mate Hatta Rajasa.
“We want them punished as a shock therapy,” KPI member Fajar Arifianto Isnugroho said, as quoted by state-run Antara news agency on Tuesday.
The commission has reportedly summoned representatives from the two stations and gave them one week to improve their broadcasting content.
“We’ll see for a week. If nothing changes, we have agreed in a plenary meeting to recommend an evaluation of their building permit, which will be given to the ministry [of communication and information],” he was quoted by Antara as saying..
Based on calculations by the KPI from May 19 to 25, MetroTV aired Joko and Kalla 184 times, or 35,577 seconds, while Prabowo and Hatta were covered only 110 times, or 14,561 seconds.
On tvOne, Prabowo and Hatta dominated the station’s content with 153 coverage, or 36,561 seconds, with Joko and Kalla getting only 77 coverage, or 18,731 seconds.
“The other broadcasting institutions beside those two private television stations are still good,” Fajar said, according to Antara.
Source/Fuente: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/kpi-calls-govt-sanction-2-tv-station...
