Fiji blogs and The Fiji Times

AN OPEN letter from outgoing Fiji Times publisher Dallas Swinstead explains why he left the country's leading newspaper after rescuing it for the Motibhai Group following the buyout of News Ltd last year. The Australian-based Murdoch subsidiary was forced to divest 90 percent of its interest to local ownership under the terms of the controversial Fiji Media Industry Development Decree in September. But News Ltd elected to sell up completely:

People keep telling me I’m getting the occasional mention on blogs (which I don’t read). Anyway, it would be a good idea to share with anyone who is interested why I left The Fiji Times.

1. Motibhai, the new local owners of the paper, could not organise insurance nor medical evacuation for me, a requirement of our contract.

2. This became an issue for both them and I and they agreed to pay out the remainder of the work permit, four or five weeks.

3. I am tremendously proud, in fact exhilarated, by what I achieved with the full-blooded co-operation of some 160 The Fiji Times employees, as they embraced the job of resuscitating the newspaper the government intended to close.

4. The newspaper published its editorial charter on October 9 in which we stated that we supported the Prime Minister’s dreams of One Nation One People. We made it clear we would not be kissing arses but nor would we be instinctively kicking them. Like every decent paper in the world we have kept that promise.

5. The government continues to subsidise the opposition newspaper, the Fiji Sun with about 3000 pages of advertising a year. In return it publishes verbatim, mostly, all government releases. It is a shameless, even dangerous, publication.

6. Depending on what happens in Fiji in the weeks ahead, I may, or may not, fill in the details of that journey other than to take this opportunity to thank those dozens of the business, academic, legal, diplomatic and public servicemen and women who shared frank and revealing conversations with me about the way Fiji works.

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• Croz Walsh on the Swinstead rationale

Back to the future at the Fiji Times – and it just might work

THE DOOMSDAY brigade is quickly at it again with its tenacious state gagging scenario at the Fiji Times. Media voices trot out the same tired old media freedom clichés about the fate of the ex-News Ltd newspaper that did so much to dig its own grave. Café Pacific prefers to keep an open mind and see what Motibhai’s new publisher, Dallas Swinstead, can produce. Give him time. A breath of fresh air and a strategic rethink of how to go about being an effective newspaper faced with the reality of a military-backed authoritarian regime. A real challenge.

Murdoch's previous News Ltd managers at the FT failed to get to grips with reality in Fiji. The combination of ownership by a Fiji company headed by astute businessman "Mac" Patel, who had long experience at the newspaper as a director, and a trusted publisher, who already had a track record as an innovative chief executive at the helm for four years – albeit during more relaxed times – could yet turn out to be a winner.

And if the Fiji Times succeeds in negotiating the media decree minefield and staying afloat with its long-lost integrity restored, then chalk that up as a media freedom success. If the newspaper learns from its past divisive mistakes, then even better. This outcome is vastly preferable to the News Ltd debacle that brought the newspaper to the brink of closure. Netani Rika and Margaret Wise are synonymous with that partisan era of questionable ethics. Rika "sacrificed" his job for the good of the company. But the rot had actually set in long before the George Speight attempted coup in May 2000.

The International Federation of Journalists voiced concern for the future of “critical and independent media” in Fiji, with secretary-general Aidan White saying: “The regime-imposed pressures on the Fiji Times risk silencing anyone who dares to stand up to defend independent media for the people of Fiji.” The Pacific Freedom Forum is concerned about “increasing confusion” as spin and silence reigns with a new Fiji clampdown. The regime friendly rival Fiji Sun reported the Fiji Times newsroom in a turmoil. Veteran columnist Seona Smiles says the resignation of Rika and the uncertainty over deputy editor Sophie Foster is a “great loss” to the newspaper.

For people to have to leave a job that they are both competent at, for political reasons, is always difficult. And both Netani Rika and Sophie Foster remained very staunch and true to journalistic ethics, throughout the recent period of political crisis.

However, in spite of all the hype and spin by both the regime and some media freedom opportunists, when a new broom is brought into a newspaper with change of ownership, it is normal for a change of editor and top editorial management. Café Pacific publisher David Robie flagged an editorial reshuffle in an interview with Radio NZ International’s Mediawatch programme last Sunday. Pacific Media Watch's Alex Perrottet reported the interview, quoting Dr Robie as saying that the Fiji Times was “going back to the future”:

As the dust settles, they may well look at another editor who would probably be more in tune with what Dallas Swinstead is going to try and do …

He is likely to take a more diplomatic approach to the regime than his immediate predecessors. But I certainly don’t think he is going to be kowtowing to the regime. He has made some quite strong comments since he has been appointed.

But whether Fred Wesley is the right choice as acting editor-in-chief is another matter. Swinstead himself confirmed that he would be trying to “rebuild the relationship” with the regime in an interview with Fiji Broadcasting Corporation news director Stan Simpson:

Yes, we are changing direction. Having watched News Ltd perish in this country, there’s no sense in committing suicide – even with a local-owned replacement. There is no doubt that The Fiji Times cannot be antagonistic to the government. What on earth does it prove? But we will ask questions in a fair and balanced way because we will be helping to bring the people to the government.

Picture: How the old Fiji Times looked in 1974 - before Dallas Swinstead revamped the paper during his first stint as publisher for four years, 1976-1980. Photo: Fiji Times

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• Listen to Radio NZI’s Mediawatch interview with David Robie on Fiji [@22m08s]

Motibhai’s new broom brushes off the 'dumb questions'

DALLAS SWINSTEAD, Motibhai’s new broom as publisher of the 141-year-old Fiji Times, didn’t waste any time setting the benchmark this week at his old paper. He has returned to Fiji with an open mind. He says he remains committed to good journalism and wants to rebuild the newspaper into the fine publication it has been. But he will also be “pragmatic” about the military-backed regime.

Swinstead believes there are more subtle and strategic ways of achieving success at the newspaper than pointless confrontation that killed the paper off for News Ltd: "What’s the point in having a newspaper shut down?” he asked Geraldine Coutts in an interview with Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat this week.

Thankfully, Fiji’s oldest and most influential newspaper survived the doomsday predictions with the enforced sale. Some journalists seem to think that it is a badge of honour to be kicked out of a country or for their title to be closed down. The ultimate censure. And the price then is enforced silence or rumour mongering for the citizens. Everybody loses.

After such an important contribution to the country from humble beginnings in Levuka in 1869 and to the building of a society both before and post-independence, it would have been “unthinkable” for the Times not to continue, as Motibhai’s board chairman Mahendra “Mac” Patel put it. Patel knew Swinstead from his first term as Fiji Times publisher (when he was very innovative) for four years until 1980, long before Sitiveni Rabuka’s twin coups threw Fiji into a downward spiral. Swinstead has a diplomatic streak and he may prove to be more adept at negotiating an “open space” with the regime than his predecessors.

It is early days yet, and for the moment Swinstead is saddled with the same editor-in-chief, Netani Rika, who is very unpopular with the regime. Will he remain for the long haul? Unlikely.

The handover at The Fiji Times in Suva this week was fairly upbeat with optimistic rhetoric from both the outgoing owner, News Ltd’s chairman and chief executive John Hartigan, and the new owner, Motibhai's “Mac” Patel. Hartigan said: “Today is a very emotional day for me, for a lot of people in our country and elsewhere; we didn't want to sell the paper.” Patel said: "Fiji without the Fiji Times is unthinkable. Motibhai's acquisition is for the people of Fiji."

Swinstead gave some hints on his editorial philosophy for the challenging times ahead in the Pacific Beat interview - and he brushed off what he branded as a “dumb question” or two from Coutts.

Explaining his views, Swinstead told Coutts: “I understand the values and the responsibility enjoying the right to free speech and the cost of putting my foot in my mouth. So there are two ways to go here. One is to demand free speech and you can ask News Ltd about that. And the other is to try to work with the local ownership, with the people and with the government to get this country to where it wants to be. Now it sounds a bit precious, but that's the reality and I am a pragmatist."

Coutts responded that she wasn’t “quite sure what that actually says” and asked again whether he supported a status quo approach or a free press:

SWINSTEAD: No, what I said is that I understand free speech better than most and I understand its value, but here it is not possible under some circumstances. What you have to understand is that 95 percent of our paper - whether it is Fijians, Indians and whatever - is happening here. It's sport results, it's commerce … the whole thing. And inevitably there are going to be stories that will cause the government embarrassment and I hope to be able to find a way to negotiate with good people down there and people here who are somehow or other able to keep some conversation going. I make no promises, and if we have to close our mouths or be shut down, I have no option but to walk around it. Now that's pretty simple.

COUTTS: So if you get a directive not to do a certain story, you will abide by that?

SWINSTEAD: I beg your pardon?

COUTTS: If you get a directive from the government or the censors not to do a story that you think is important and in the public interest, you'll sit it on it yourself? You'll choose to do that? You'll censor yourself?

SWINSTEAD: Well, with respect to you, that is a pretty dumb question. Of course, I will. What's the point in having a newspaper shut down?

COUTTS: Well then going back to the original question, what is freedom of speech?

SWINSTEAD: Freedom of speech - my original answer was my parents gave me a pretty fair idea of what you can say and get away with, and when you stepped out of line and they ran the show they knocked you over. So, I mean, I don't like that happening. I am tenacious, but I am a good mediator and a facilitator, and I will be trying to talk to people in government to lead them to understand how valuable a free and open press is. But look, it is a developing country with lots of problems and I am sympathetic to them and I am not angry about censorship or anything else. That's life.

Fiji Village.com picked up on this interview and presented it as Swinstead “clearing the air” on Fiji. The radio station’s website said he would “keep the channels of communication open” with the regime. Fiji Village is part of the Communications Fiji group, which is another key media group with a powerful Gujerati business stake (Hari Punja) along with The Fiji Times (Motibhai) and the Fiji Sun (C. J. Patel).

Good luck to the new team at The Fiji Times. They’ll need it. At least Fiji will still be blessed with a choice of daily newspapers. The third daily – the Daily Post, with a substantial indigenous Fijian shareholding, is already a casualty of the censorship climate and struggling economy.

Pictured: Dallas Swinstead (Photo: Fiji Times)

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