Press Professionalism, Journalist Competence and Social Responsibility: A Conceptual Paper

Abstract

The realization of press professionalism is a great hope for the Indonesian press community. Various steps have been formulated and implemented to improve the quality of journalists who are at the same time spearheading the implementation of democracy. One of them is the competence of journalists which has been implemented by the Press Council and journalistic professional organization groups since 2010. Until the end of 2022, as many as 17,000 journalists have taken the Journalist Competency Test (UKW) from more than 200,000 Indonesian journalists. For this reason; the Press Council continues to disseminate competency certification to all journalists and related stakeholders so that all journalists have competency certification. This study found that there are two things that become obstacles in realizing the professionalism of the press. First, there are still many journalists who do not understand the competence of journalists and have not mastered journalistic skills or technical pragmatism. Second, journalist competency certification has no effect on increasing the welfare of journalists, or pragmatic professionalism has not been fulfilled. This study uses literature studies to obtain research data, then collects and analyzes sources from articles, books, previous research on press professionalism and journalistic competence. To formulate research results, researchers use the Social Responsibility Theory of the Press which is in accordance with the professionalism of journalists and their responsibility to society. This paper discusses the reciprocal application of the concept of Press Social Responsibility so that there is a shared responsibility between the press and the public in realizing press professionalism. Because based on Article 17 of the Press Law Number 40 of 1999 it is stated that the public can participate in building the quality of the national press.