Fabricated TV-Show

Competition among TV stations seemed to be very tough that they would do anything, including paying guest to tell false story, so as to grab viewers' attention.

That's what I thought when I read on The Jakarta Globe about a lady presenter in TV-One who paid a guest to tell a false story during a talk show.

I hope that this incident is merely the work of the presenter and other individuals, and not TV-One which is owned by Golkar Party Chairman Aburizal Bakrie, otherwise it would give a bad name not just said TV but others as well.

April 08, 2010  Jakarta Globe

Well-Known TV Presenter on Wrong End of Story

A prominent television anchorwoman has found herself in hot water with National Police after it was alleged she paid off a man to pose as a member of the judicial mafia on news channel TV One.

National Police Spokesperson Insp. Gen. Edward Aritonang told Detik.com on Thursday that they had detained the man who claimed on television to broker cases on behalf of national police.

The man, identified as Andris Ronaldi, told police that he was paid by a television news presenter with the initials IR to talk on television.

“He said he was asked to say that he was part of the judicial mafia by the TV presenter,” Edward said. “He was paid Rp 1.5 million ($165) to do so.”

Edward said Andris was detained on Wednesday afternoon after what had been an intensive search. “We arrested him at his house and took him to the National Police headquarters,” he added.

Andris was a guest on “Apa Kabar Indonesia Pagi” (“How Are You Indonesia”), a breakfast news program on TV One, on March 18, 2010 with Denny Indrayana from the judicial mafia eradication task force. The talk show host was IR.

“We might question Denny as well,” Edward said.

According to Edward, Andris was wearing a mask when speaking on camera but after the show finished broadcasting, he removed the mask and he was introduced to Denny.

The National Police would also report IR to the Press Council for allegedly fabricating news, he said.

“We will report her to the Press Council and the Broadcasting Commission. According to Chapter 67 of Law No. 32 on Broadcasting, it is illegal to broadcast slander or lies. It carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a Rp 10 billion penalty,” he said.

Meanwhile, TV One chief editor Karni Ilyas said he was in a meeting with the news manager and producers. “I want to find out from them what really happened. I’ll make a statement later,” Karni said.

IR was not available for comment but seven hours ago she tweeted, “dear problems, my GOD is greater than you ...”

TV One, based in East Jakarta, is owned by the family of Golkar Party Chairman Aburizal Bakrie and his son, Anindya, is the chief commissioner.

The Sinetron

Since the reform took place in 1998, Indonesia has changed from a very closed conservative society where censorship is very common, into a more open liberal society.

One of the industry which is effected is the television movie industry, popularly known as the Sinetron (short for Sinema Elektronik) shown by every local TV stations.
Every day, each TV stations tried their very best to show their own popular movie series so that many viewers would want to watch them, that way many companies would want to place advertisements on the TV program.
But in spite of the many titles, actors/actresses, stories that those Sinetron shows, actually most of their topics are the same, i.e. either Horror or Love story. The worst thing is that they all have one thing in common i.e. they show Emotional Violence where role players scream, shout, curse, etc. as if our society is emotionally violent.

Frankly speaking, I never watched one Sinetron till the end, simply because I get bored by the reasons that I have mentioned above. But please don’t get me wrong; I do believe that there are many Indonesian movies which are worth watching, the latest one being Laskar Pelangi. And in the past, there was a memorable movie: Badai Pasti Berlalu, and TV movie like Si Unyil and Keluarga Cemara.

Considering that TV movies are watched by unlimited people with all kinds of backgrounds and ages, in my opinion they should have more variety of topics, not just Horror and/or Love, but also educative topics related to the Environment, Patriotism, good moral standards, etc.