Unspun

You know its the silly season when newspapers write about how deserted the roads are in Jakarta — because there is nothing else happening. It is a time when reporters get desperate, copy editors get indolent and let slip the standards that go toward a good paper.

The torpor must have got to the Post’s editors and reporters in the story below. Once again we have a story brimming with “experts “. Why are they experts? It appears that they are some sort of lecturer or media slut in an institution of learning, but the readers are usually not given their designations. Why, oh why, can the Post not learn tht readers can decide for themselves who’s an expert if they attribute the titles and designations of the paper’s sources properly?

clipped from thejakartapost.com President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s three years in office have yielded only mediocre results in the fields of the economy, public service and law enforcement, political experts say. Boni Hargens of the University of Indonesia said Yudhoyono’s only real success had been in maintaining stability. Indria Samego of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences said there had been a decline in public services dealing with people’s welfare during Yudhoyono’s administration. A legal expert from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Denny Indrayana, said that although law enforcement under Yudhoyono was better than in previous presidencies, there were still problems.