Media coverage of war atrocities opens debate on INFOCORE research

 
Media is going through a "tremendous transformation as a result of the ever-changing, global media landscape". Video: Euronews

By Elena Cavalione of Euronews

IN A world torn apart by conflicts old and new, the issue of the media’s role seems to have growing importance.

Media coverage of atrocities committed during wars is opening up debate on the power images have to influence public opinion and political decisions.

INFOCORE is an international research study funded by the 7th European Framework Programme of the European Commission. It brings together experts from the Social Sciences to investigate the media’s role in violent conflicts in three regions: the Middle East, the Balkans and Central Africa.

Romy Frohlich from Ludwig Maaximilians University in Munich explains that journalism is under a state of tremendous transformation as a result of the ever-changing, global media landscape.

“What we see so far”, she says, “is that this change in journalism does affect or had an effect on the power balance within the shaping of public discourse, for example the relation between journalism and political actors or journalism and propaganda and public relations.”

Social media and the ANZAC press on Fiji

A BELATED posting of a presentation at the recent PINA Pacific Media Summit in Pacific Harbour that took a swipe at the Australian and New Zealand media coverage on Fiji. This was part of a panel discussing social media and credibility:

By  Leone Cabenatabua, publications manager of the Fiji Sun

Should the public believe social media content? That choice rests with the individual.

However, for us in the news media, we should always show responsibility when it comes to using social media content in our stories.

It’s sad to note that prominent Australian and New Zealand media outlets have sensationalised issues about Fiji based on content that are written by faceless cowards.

These are posted in anti-Fiji blog sites like Coup 4.5. For example, if you believed Coup 4.5: 

• ... Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimara is so unwell he cannot walk properly. Yet there he was leading his men and women on a four-hour route march just recently. You saw him yourself last night.
• If you believe Coup 4.5, our Attorney-General has been arrested and held incommunicado at Queen Elizabeth Barracks ... yet a simple check would have found that he was at home catching up on sleep after non-stop work trip through through different time zones.
• What makes it worse is the fact that these media outlets we in the Pacific Islands once looked up to, make no apparent efforts whatsoever to verify  allegations made on such blog sites.
• Some even reported Commodore Bainimarama was dead … based solely on a discredited anonymous blog site. Commodore Bainimarama was in fact on a trip to China to promote Chinese investment in Fiji.

Where have their media ethics gone to report such nonsense from such discredited blog sites?

All these allegations come from people who are out to fulfill their own agendas. They do not have the interest of the nation at heart.
 
This senseless type of reporting has a huge negative impact on a nation, especially its citizens who are the innocent victims.

It’s a different story when we have prominent academics like Pacific Media Centre's Dr David Robie who have written good analytical pieces for us to ponder on and share ideas of our progress from it.

Or to have blog sites like the ones written by Dr Crosbie Walsh.

In my experience through our numerous exchange of emails and phone calls, he makes it his business that whatever he puts down is accurate information- nothing else.

Again, I’ve nothing against social media or whether people want to believe in its content or not.

There are many good uses for social media.

But as journalists we must be more professional and more responsible than some of those who use social media to spread misinformation.

We should know better than to just report the claims of an anonymous blog site run by faceless people promoting disinformation and racial hatred.

Unfortunately, some  in Australia and New Zealand seem more interested in discrediting Fiji than getting it right.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is my ten cents worth on social media.

• Bloggers slammed for misinformation
• Call for independent media

The Fiji disinformation blogs

Opinion by Dr Crosbie Walsh

THERE are indications of panic in the anti-blog newsrooms. Despite their efforts to liken the Fiji dictatorship to the military dictatorship in Burma, there have been no protest marches or public immolestations. Ordinary Fijians seem to be going about their daily lives in normal ways.

From the perspective of the anti-blogs, things are moving too smoothly. The Constitution reform process has been generally well received. The media is publishing commments hostile to the "illegal" government by former politicians Qarase, Chaudhry and Beddoes , and even Rabuka has put his two-cents' worth in. The Methodist Church hierachy and the CCF have aired views critrical of government on the demise of the Great Council of Chiefs.

The pathway to the "illegal" elections is now more clearly illuminated. There seems little doubt that the United States - and Australia and NZ behind the scenes - have accepted the announced steps leading up to the 2014 election. And even the economy seems to be picking up.

What does this mean for the anti-blogs? They could change tack and try to steer events closer to how they wish. They could even change to genuine support, subject to certain conditions. But these strategies would not put the SDL back in power or ensure itaukei paramountcy, whatever that now means.

Nor would there be the perks, appointments and scholarships like there were in the good old days. So, as their chances of success diminish by the day, their best option is to take their disinformation to a new level.

"Disinformation (a direct translation of Russian дезинформация dezinformatsiya)", and I quote from Wikipedia,"is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately. For this reason, it is synonymous with and sometimes called black propaganda. It is an act of deception and false statements to convince someone of untruth. Disinformation should not be confused with misinformation, information that is unintentionally false.

"Unlike traditional propaganda techniques designed to engage emotional support, disinformation is designed to manipulate the audience at the rational level by either discrediting conflicting information or supporting false conclusions. A common disinformation tactic is to mix some truth and observation with false conclusions and lies, or to reveal part of the truth while presenting it as the whole (a limited hangout)."

Disinformation, of course, is not new to Coup4.5. Their stories from insider, leaked and "usually reliable sources" have long provided gossipy fodder for their more gullible readers. Remember the protest marches that never eventuated?: The military about to rebel ... The links to Al Queda and the Muslim takeover ... Bainimarama so ill he could not walk unsupported ... Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum's "arrest"... Bainimarama portrayed as Khaiyum's puppet (and unintelligent, untrustworthy, corrupt, incompetent and a liar, as FijiToday repeated only yesterday.)

The blog's latest posting (22/3/12) claims "on excellent authority that a trio [of the Chief Justice and lawyer sisters Nazhat and Shaista Shameem] has already drafted a guiding Constitution and held a secret meeting on New Years Day at the Macau Hotel in Nadi" to discuss the consultation process, the Civic Education Programme, and the composition of the Constituent Assembly. They also had learned "on excellent authority that as suspected, Yash Ghai was chosen by Bainimarama and Khaiyum to head their illegal consultation process because of his profile."

What's so hushhush and sinister about all this? A secret meeting in Nadi when they could have met more secretly in Suva — although, apparently, it took Coup4.5 from New Year's Day to find out? Three lawyers meeting to consider legal guidelines? Thoughts on who could make up the Constituent Assembly? The choice of an internationally respected lawyer to chair the Commission that would hear submissions prior to the meeting of the Assembly?

Does Coup4.5 seriously and honestly think the Constitution Process could happen without forward planning, that participants and agendas would miraculously fall into place, and a lot should be drawn for chairman? There is no story here. Perhaps that's why it took Coup4.5 from January 1 to tell it.

The day before (21/3/12) they published an equally incredulous, but far more embellished, story. This time it was a "leaked report" of a meeting of the Military Council to provide an "exit strategy for Frank Bainimarama cloaked in a new Constitution and the 2014 election." The meeting apparently considered a "paper titled Fiji's Road Map To Political Election 2014 (sent to Coupfourpointfive the day before the consultation process was announced more than two weeks ago on March 9)." But why it was not reported then they do not say.

However, we are told subsequent events (the abolition of the GCC, changes in the Provincial Councils, etc) make the report "too convincing to ignore." The meeting also discussed how Bainimarama could be "out maneuvered" [sic]! Huh! Exit strategy and outmanoeuvred? Submitting the report and the minutes of their meeting to paper would seem to be dangerous given their part of their plot to outmanoeuvre the Prime Minister. The paper (that may be read in full on the Coup4.5 site) really lets the cat out of the blog so I would expect the immediate dismissal of plotters Captain Natuva, Colonel Saumatua and Colonel Aziz on the grounds of disloyalty.

The paper listed seven strategies. Strategy 1 called for an immediate election, and a “People Constitution Forum" spearheaded by the 20 government departments. If this does not happen, Coup4.5's disinformation is exposed.

Strategy 2 called for the PM "to publicly announce this month he will stand for election" and form a new political party. His campaign will be led by "highly professional and political experts." All government departments will be "militarised" and soldiers will be his "campaign runners." Provincial Councils and civil servants will "follow orders." It's no secret the PM may stand for elections but if his election campaign is not as Coup4.5 describes, its disinformation is further exposed.

Stategy 3 would see no old political party stand for election, and a qualification test for all candidates. This is also possible. It has been talked about for some time, and no one would be surprised if the Constitution Assembly ruled along these lines.

I'll leave readers to read the rest, most of which I find unsurprising. Most "accusations" have been announced or anticipated already. It is only their interpretation that makes them seem sinister. But, as we now all know, "A common disinformation tactic is to mix some truth and observation with false conclusions and lies, or to reveal part of the truth while presenting it as the whole."

Expect much more of the same as time rolls on.

Retired professor emeritus Crosbie Walsh was founding director of development studies at the University of the South Pacific and publishes a Fiji analysis blog.

Coup 4.5

Coup 4.5 - the Fiji politics of hate

NOT SO VEILED RACISM

By Graham Davis

MOST countries have laws that prevent religious and racial vilification. Most responsible media outlets – including those on the internet – excise comments designed to inflame religious and racial hatred. But sadly not the most prominent of the websites set up to oppose the government of Fiji’s prime minister, Frank Bainimarama.

That site calls itself Coup Four and a Half – otherwise known as 4.5 – and is supposedly run by journalists. Its name denotes the four coups in Fiji’s post independence history -the two Rabuka coups in 1987, the Speight coup in 2000, the Bainimarama coup in 2006 plus what 4.5 regards as the half coup when Bainimarama’s takeover was declared illegal by the courts in 2009 and he abrogated the constitution altogether, sacked the judiciary and continued to govern by decree.

Now, Coup 4.5 is entitled to oppose the dictatorship, though many Fijians prefer it to the nationalist government Bainimarama overthrew. It’s also entitled to campaign for the restoration of democracy, though many Fijians are happy to accept the regime’s promise to hold elections in 2014. But there’s plenty wrong with 4.5 – unforgivably so – when it publishes the most vile attacks on people based on race and religious affiliation.

Grubsheet has taken the site to task before for publishing comments describing Indo-Fijians as “mongoose” or “mynahs” – the clear implication being that Fijians of Indian descent are imported pests. It regularly refers to the prime minister as “the Baini”, a disparaging play on words on the popular Hindi description of a person of low breeding or class. But now comes something far more grave, an all out attack on Fiji’s Muslims on one of the holiest days of the Islamic calendar – the birthday of the prophet Mohammed.

This wasn’t in the comments section of the site but in the main editorial column. And it deserves to be read in full, not only to appreciate the appalling nature of the attack itself but to appreciate why the Bainimarama regime is so determined to stamp out this kind of racial and religious intolerance in Fiji once and for all:

Fiji is going through a false scenario of reforms and modernisation to have a new Fiji. This was reiterated by the PM in his address during the November 2012 budget. Sadly it is bound to end up with civilization with darkness.

The truth is Muslims, through Aiyaz Sayed-Kaiyum, is [sic] colonising Fiji. They are deceiving the people of Fiji using nice phrases and words such as modernisation, a new Fiji without corruption, transparency, fairness to justify their staying in power. Look at what has been happening:

• Muslim [sic] riding hard on power (RFMF)
• Rule by decree
• Increase in the number of key positions in government being given to Muslims or those supporting Khaiyum
• Weakening of Fijian institutions and culture and land ownership
• Nepotism
• Recruiting of non-Fijians, especially kaivalagis, to weaken Fijian’s capabilities

Wake up Fiji. Wake up to the radical changes in our beloved peaceful and friendly country.

Regrettably, Banimarama will not do anything: only he knows why it is, 'Yes sir, three bags full sir!'

[Image of the hate figure Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum inserted by Coup 4.5.]

This grubby little offering isn’t just inflammatory but utterly false. Muslims constitute just 7 percent of the population of Fiji – some 54,000 in a country of 860,000. They are hardly “colonising Fiji”, as the anonymous author of this rubbish asserts. There is one Muslim cabinet minister – Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Kaiyum – and one Muslim officer – Brigadier-General Mohammed Aziz – in the RFMF, the Republic of Fiji Military Forces. These are hardly “Muslims riding hard to power”. In fact, they’re total exceptions in their own fields in a population utterly dominated by Christians and Hindus. So the notion that they pose any “threat” is risible.

There’s also a puzzling reference to the “recruitment of non-Fijians, especially kaivalagis, to weaken Fijian’s capabilities”. Kaivalagi is the indigenous term for a white man or European. On the latest figures available, a mere 0.4 percent of Fiji’s population describes itself as European, under 3000 people in a population of 860,000. Perhaps the author was referring to the recruitment of American PR people or the odd expatriate lawyer. But this is clearly even more of a furphy than the claim about Muslims.

Simply put, Coup 4.5 – with this base offering – has become the local equivalent of a Nazi hate sheet. It’s designed to provoke and exploit the long-standing and deep-rooted fears of uneducated indigenous Fijians and turn them against Muslims in particular and Indo-Fijians in general. And it does that in the crudest way possible – to spread the lie that indigenous people are being marginalised in the land of their birth and robbed of their jobs and land.

There is also the implicit message that Fijians could be forced to abandon Christianity and live under the diktat of an Islamic state. How? Because Coup 4.5 positioned this vile piece of misinformation right next to the text of a routine message from the Prime Minister to Fiji’s Muslims to mark Mohammed’s birthday. The contents of this were totally inoffensive – indeed, sentiments universally shared of unity and tolerance. Yet it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Bainimarama’s adoption of the Muslim customary greeting, "Peace be upon him”, when referring to the Prophet, was being exploited to carry a deeper message of a leader dancing to the tune of both the Muslim religion and his Muslim right hand man, Khaiyum.

Or as the “article” put it – “Yes, sir. Three bags full, sir!” Presumably no “no sir’ – as the nursery rhyme usually goes – because, in 4.5′s view, Bainimarama never says no to his attorney-general.

Who are these people? Well, they’re always anonymous but are said to be a group of Fiji journalists running their site out of Auckland, with contributions from members of the deposed SDL government, ex civil servants and a hard core of anti-regime “human rights” advocates. One thing is certain. As well as permitting overtly racist content on the site, they routinely censor any comments they don’t agree with – unbridled hypocrisy from a site that continually castigates the regime for its own censorship of the media.

The wonder is that some of 4.5′s content is written by respected journalists and academics who are Indo-Fijians to boot. There are contributions from the Oxford-based Victor Lal – arguably Fiji’s finest investigative journalist – and from the economist Professor Wadan Narsey, currently working in Japan after falling out with his superiors at the University of the South Pacific.

Grubsheet recently asked Professor Narsey how he could possibly have anything to do with a website that carried overtly racist content. His response was that he’d been told by the “journalists” at 4.5 that it was preferable to allow people to “let off steam than have them bottle it up”.

How any responsible person can accept such a notion is frankly beyond Grubsheet’s ken. This is bottled venom that would bring prosecution in New Zealand – the country from which Coup 4.5 supposedly operates – and, for that matter, in all of the bolt holes of the disaffected Fijian diaspora. Imagine the furor if any Muslim in Fiji had launched a similar attack on local Christians, and on Christmas Day? It’s inexcusable and unacceptable. No buts.

An abbreviated version of this article has subsequently appeared in the Fiji Sun.

SEQUEL: Predictably, the Coup 4.5 article has triggered a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in the comment sections of the blog, along with a series of personal attacks on Grubsheet for having the temerity to criticise the piece.

Here’s a sample that has all the hallmarks of fascist propaganda – the bigger the lie the more believable, for those inclined to believe in the first place.

Freedom Seeker said:

While the followers of Islam seek to control the country- through subtle infiltration into the senior executive management of Fiji’s leading corporations and conglomerate companies- they will not be too pleased to discover that the religion they so vehemently follow with extreme devoutness – is, in fact, a sham.

There is increasing archaeological and documentary evidence being discovered which clearly shows that Islam was developed by the Vatican for the sole purpose of eliminating Jews. While many may be shocked by this revelation- there are a group of people who are privy to the authenticity of this fact- in fact, they may even hold key evidence and documentation which exposes Islam as a false religion- and an offshoot of the Roman Catholic faith.

Another made accusations of child abuse.

Coup 4.5 could excise this but won’t, even as it censors political comments that don’t suit its agenda. In other parts of the world, accusing the Prophet of child abuse and claiming Islam is a construct of the Vatican to eliminate the Jews carries the potential to spark rioting, fatwas, even Jihad. Yet at Coup 4.5, it’s all a legitimate part of the debate. The politics of hate.

Fiji-born Graham Davis is an award-winning Australian journalist who has reported widely from around the world. He blogs at Grubsheet.

• Coup 4.5
• Grubsheet