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OBAMA ON THE ASIAN HIGHWAY
Myanmar up close
By Eli Clifton

WASHINGTON - United States President Barack Obama's attendance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum leaders' meeting in Singapore next week will chart a new direction for US participation in Asian multilateral diplomacy and call attention to the new administration's policy of engagement with the reclusive military-led government in Myanmar.

no media outlet would miss the opportunity

The Jakarta Globe is leading the charge against Indonesian TV's coverage of the terrorist shoot-out last week. The "experts" don't seem to have any concrete gripes, other than the media's coverage didn't feel right. Nor do they have any recommendations for what the media should have done.

Some of the criticisms are outright ridiculous:

• Media reports "too often verged on glorifying terror suspects". Really? What channel were you watching?!
• Interviews were turned into "cheap melodrama". Wouldn't that just make the news coverage consistent with TV content generally?
• Media announcements were based "purely on speculation and not on good journalistic practices". Oh, kind of like the CNN, BBC and other "reputable" news sources quoting Twitter on the #iranelection or showing videos from YouTube that we all know they could not possibly verify.
• "Even if journalists have seen the news subject themselves, they still have to verify it with other sources." That might be true, but I doubt any media outlet applies this strictly. How many times have you heard a BBC or CNN reporter say "I witnessed..." If no-one else can verify what the journalist saw, then does it follow that the journalist cannot report it?

The quote above comes from an Al Jazeera journalist. He's absolutely right. There was (and is) massive public interest in the terror suspects' capture. Sure, the media coverage wasn't great --- in some cases it was pretty appalling --- but the important thing is that we HAVE media that are FREE to cover these things.

As for the Police warning the media because of public complaints... Come on! The public should be complaining to the media outlet --- not the Police. Which one of you would approach the Police with a complaint about media coverage? Sure, the Police should be talking to the media about the coverage --- particularly as there was misreporting --- but how about a CONSTRUCTIVE dialogue about what went wrong and how they can work better in the future. Enough of these parental "warnings". The Police have no right.