If the quality and ethical factors in writing news are still being neglected, it will harm the future of the nation since more and more people are relying to online media to get information
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Quality and ethics are still a challenge in the development of online journalism in Indonesia, the chief editor of national online media, Vivanews Karaniya Dharmasaputra, said here on Friday.

"One of the key issues in Indonesian online journalism now is the emphasis on the speed rather than the accuracy of the news written. This condition causes journalists to tend to write news as fast as they can with little emphasis on whether the information they write is accurate or not or whether it is ethical or not," he said.

Karaniya cited as an example the porn video case involving three national celebrities. He said the media tended to exploit the sexual aspects of the case to attract more viewers while in the journalistic code such action was not allowed.

"If the quality and ethical factors in writing news are still being neglected, it will harm the future of the nation since more and more people are relying to online media to get information," he said.

According to reports put through by the Internetworldstats (IWS) in January 2010, internet users in Indonesia during the year 2000 were estimated to number 2 million, and increased to 30 million by the end of 2009.

This proved that the number of internet users in the country during the period has risen by 1,150 percent. Given the total estimated population of the country of 240.2 million as per September 30, 2009, the internet had penetrated 12.5 percent of the population.

Compared to the total number of internet users in Asia, those in Indonesia were growing by 4.1 percent. The IWS noted that internet users in Asia totaled 738 million, a growth of 545.9 percent since the year 2000.

Indonesia for the time being is considered Asia`s fifth top country on the growth of internet users behind China (338 million), Japan (94 million), India (81 million), and South Korea (37.5 million). (*)

Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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