National Press Day: Youthful Proximity and Critical Trusty News

Historically, on the day when the Indonesian Journalist Association was born, we also marked the day as the celebration of National Press Day. Yes, 9 February was officially noted down in the Republic of Indonesia's Presidential Decree No. 5 of 1985 as our National Press Day. To celebrate this, we’d go into the editorial room and ask 3 IDN Times’ journalists about their insights on National Press Day celebrated today.

Tarmizi Murdianto (Mizi), Febriyanti Revitasari (Vita), and Klara Livia (Klara) were the selected Timmys. When asked about the significances of the National Press Day celebration, Tarmizi began the conversation and answered the question diplomatically, “Indonesian press took an important role in the history of our independent day. In today’s life, celebrating it will show our appreciation to each component of the press. A film called ‘Bombshell’ I once watched was a documented  fiction film about the scandal of Fox News’ CEO and it showed me enough how media played an important role.” 

Becoming the spearhead of information, the press nowadays was very required to tell true reliable stories. “Even every single one is allowed to share news, I personally believe. Of course, the person sharing it is obliged to be responsible for the news itself. Well, I call it 2-side-news,” explained Vita. In addition, Klara said, “There are some people out there who make a sensitive issue a jokeーcoronavirus, let’s say. It isn’t wrong, but it isn’t a thing we’re supposed to do. Do you not think so? On the other hand, most Indonesians like that kind of joke. That’s confusing.”

According to their statements, we would need more press that saw something from different perspectives. “Coronavirus, for example. Yes, a lot of reporters have informed us about its scary facts providing the number of dead victims. That is good, I don’t say it’s bad or we have to omit it, but I think we need more angles like the preventive steps to avoid coronavirus outbreak, the scientific reasons why doctors said Indonesians are less prone to coronavirus,” Mizi, again, added. 

#PositivelyImpactSociety, they said, was really the one value that we should always carry on. With the young batch that now fulfilled the workforce, we would want to be as best as we could be on whatever we did, as reporters, especially. With the proximity we shared with other young people, we wanted to understand their perspectives while giving critical trusty news at the same time.