BANJARMASIN – The end of 2022 is a historic moment for the press in South Kalimantan. Five press organizations in Banua which are constituents of the Press Council agreed to form a joint forum.
The name is the Banua Press Consortium. A combination of the organizations PWI (Indonesian Journalists Association), JMSI (Indonesian Sibes Media Network), IJTI (Indonesian Television Journalists Association), AJI (Alliance of Independent Journalists) and SMSI (Indonesian Cyber Media Union).
The consortium was formed at a meeting of the heads of press organizations at the South Kalimantan PWI Secretariat, Thursday (29/12). The board is in the form of a presidium council with collective leadership. Appointed as coordinators were PWI Chairman Zainal Helmie, and Secretary Toto Fachrudin. The agreement will later be set forth in a joint declaration signed by each head of the press organization.
Namely Didi Gunawan (Head of South Kalimantan AJI), Zainal Helmie (Head of South Kalimantan PWI), Dina Qomariah (Head of IJTI South Kalimantan), Anang Fadillah (Head of South Kalimantan SMSI) and Milhan (Head of South Kalimantan JMSI).
“Today is a historical moment for the press in Banua. Five press organizations form a joint forum. The name is the Banua Press Consortium. There is no organization that is dominant or feels the most powerful and influential. All are the same, namely the Banua press community,” said the Coordinator of the Banua Press Consortium, Zainal Helmie.
Helmie added, in time a joint declaration will be made which is structured with discussion activities to discuss the future challenges of the press in maintaining dignity, code of ethics and moral behavior.
“We will strengthen journalist competency standards, provide advocacy and legal protection, and maintain the ethical dignity and moral behavior of journalists,” said Helmie.
The establishment of the Banua Press Consortium was enthusiastically welcomed by all heads of press organizations in Banua. “There must be a strengthening of journalist competency standards. Many journalists ignore the code of ethics and moral behavior,” said JMSI chairman Milhan.
The same thing was conveyed by the Chairman of SMSI, Anang Fadillah. He considered it necessary to strengthen press companies and journalist competency standards. “Many media are only manned by one person with concurrent positions. Not to mention the skills of journalists are very apprehensive, “said Anang.
A firmer opinion was conveyed by the Chairman of AJI South Kalimantan, Didi Gunawan. “Don’t let journalistic rubbish distort the role of the press which is run professionally. It is necessary to standardize reporting, including strengthening the code of ethics. There must be a joint declaration regarding the formation of this joint organization,” said Didi.
Meanwhile, the Head of IJTI, Dina Qomariah, hopes for strong cooperation so that the press in Banua can make a real contribution to the region. “Press organizations must play a real role in carrying out their functions,” said Dina.
Meanwhile, Secretary of IJTI, Suhendar said, improvements needed to be made and there had to be concrete steps so that the public would be enlightened by the media. “The press must fight unverified information on social media. There must be joint action to show the public that there is a press organization that is legal and a constituent of the Press Council in Banua,” said the Head of the Banjarmasin Kompas TV Bureau. (*)
