Pict: Grieving families of AirAsia QZ8501 missing plane
(source: www.sacbee.com)
The news of AirAsia QZ8501’s disappearance lately has brought up a controversy. Many media are busy to cover the news since Sunday 28, December 2014 up until now. In order to give actual news to the audience, many journalists look like neglecting the feeling of victims’ families. Instead of providing the progress of the searching progress of the plane, they concentrate on the family’s grief and anxiety by interviewing them asking how they feel when knew that the plane was lost. The answer is obvious ─ the question is just useless and actually makes them sadder.
According to Farid Gaban, one of Indonesian senior journalists, this happens because of the media regime which treats a reporter as robot rather than a professional expert. Journalists are forced to produce news that can increase the media ratings while they lack of expertise in journalism.
This issue is related to the normative theory, a theory that describes an ideal way for a media system to be structured and operated. First, exposing grief and trauma of victims’ families is the order or command from the editor or even the elites in the media company. This means, authoritarian theory, a normative theory that places all forms of communication under the control of a governing elite or authorities, is exercised. As cited by Arman Dhani (2014), a citizen journalist in rappler.com, a journalist admitted that he/she was asked by the editor to create dramatic news, so the audience will cry and the rating will increase as they lately always watch the news program. Eventually, he/she interview the victims’ families as much as he/she can, rather than searching information from the other sources, such as the airline company, related government, and other related parties to know the culpable negligence.
Second, professionalization of journalism in normative theory should be the guidance for journalist in covering this tragedy. As Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst argued, media practitioners should be trained by the leaders in media industry to achieve the professionalization. “Rather than cede control of media to a government agency, media managers went on record with pledges to serve public needs.” (Baran & Davis, 2006, p. 109) Hence, a set of professional standards entitled The Canons of Journalism commit media practitioners to serving the public as effectively as possible. In addition, according to Indonesia’s journalism codes of ethics (Peraturan Dewan Pers Nomor: 6/Peraturan-DP/V/2008), article 2, a journalist must respect to the traumatic experience of the news source in terms of presenting images, photos, and records. In the case above, accordingly, journalist or media should serve the victims’ families and public with the investigation progress, held by Badan SAR Nasional (Basarnas), without disturbing the process. Also, focus less on the drama of the grieving families and inform on the current updates of the ongoing search to respect the victims’ families and avoid long-drawn trauma.
On the other side, wrong expose about AirAsia’s tragedy may cultivate fear to the public. According to cultivation analysis, consumption of media message, especially television, will cause long-term effect in shaping people’s perceptions, understandings, and beliefs about the world. One of private TV station in Indonesia, RCTI, aired Seputar Indonesia Spesial “Duka Akhir Tahun” on December 31, 2014. It broadcasted the grieving families, investigation process, and the speculation of the tragedy’s cause, such as the influence of affordable (cheap) airline to the accident’s possibility and the effect of Pilot, Capt. Iriyanto, who evidently just end his leave. Those have indirectly made the public fear of having flights in the future, especially for those who usually have flights with AirAsia Airline. Cultivation Analysis would refer to these feelings of insecurity as their social reality. Watching such TV broadcast makes people feel afraid because it cultivates within us the image of a mean and dangerous “world”. Moreover, that reality is as real as any other for the public, and it is media fueled, if not media created and maintained