Taking on the challenge of Timor-Leste's media in transition

Tempo Semanal's Joe Belo ... exposing corruption. Photo: David Robie/PMC

By DAVID ROBIE in Dili

TIMOR-LESTE newspaper editor and investigative journalist Jose Belo is no stranger to controversy, legal threats or the inside of a prison cell.

He was imprisoned and tortured by the Indonesian occupation forces for a period during the 24 years of illegal occupation of Timor-Leste while smuggling out reports to the world from the beleagured resistance movement.

Five years ago he was threatened with a seven-year prison sentence for criminal defamation over allegations of corruption against the then justice minister.

This prompted a high-profile international appeal by journalists, academics and media freedom campaigners to then President Jose Ramos-Horta to have the case dropped.

Threats are common over Belo's campaigns to root out corruption and nepotism in his fledgling Asia-Pacific state - the world's newest nation barely a decade old.

Media freedom and social media - Pacific trends on Press Freedom Day

A LEADING Australian journalism law professor and freedom of the press advocate will give New Zealand’s inaugural UNESCO World Press Freedom Day lecture at AUT University today.

Dr Mark Pearson, professor of journalism and social media at Griffith University near Brisbane, will be speaking on the theme “Press freedom, social media and the citizen”, at the university on May 3, observed globally as media freedom day.

The public address is being hosted by AUT’s Pacific Media Centre and supported by the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO and the School of Communication Studies.

UNESCO, the UN agency with a mandate for freedom of expression through its Communications and Information Programme, takes a lead role in promoting this freedom as a human right through its celebration each year of World Press Freedom Day.

This year’s international theme is: “Safe to speak: Securing freedom of expression in all media”.

‘Desperate’ search for online business media model, but what about public trust?

News organisations have mostly reacted defensively about media "regulation"
but with little attention paid to public trust. Photo: TG

ONLINE media business models will succeed only if news organisations put more effort into regaining public trust, says Pacific Journalism Review in its latest edition, reports Pacific Media Watch.

In an issue devoted to the Leveson inquiry into Britain’s News of the World phone hacking scandal and the Finkelstein and Convergence reports on the Australian news industry, the research journal has questioned the “increasingly desperate” search for a business model.

“Is the new model the only answer to the current plight of journalism?” writes edition editor Dr Johan Lidberg from Monash University in Melbourne.

“Are media proprietors paying enough attention to the fact that the business model is built on the public trusting the journalistic practices that sit at the heart of the media brands?”

It is as important to retain public trust in journalism and to rebuild lost trust as the quest to make online journalism pay, Dr Lidberg writes.

“Indeed, without, or with low, public trust in news media, will online journalism ever pay enough to sustain quality journalism?” he asks.

One important tool to retain and rebuild trust in any professional practice is openness and accountability.

Ethical codes
“It is to achieve this that industries construct ethical codes of conduct to complement the existing legal framework.”

Along with the British and Australian media crises, the journal also examines NZ Law Commission proposals for media accountability reforms.

“The NZ media has not yet demonstrated anything like the excesses that have been the focus of the Leveson inquiry,” comments media law analyst Linda Clark.

“Which means the government can afford to sit back and watch what happens in the UK and in Australia. It can allow the broadcasters to experiment with an extra layer of self-regulation.”

Contributors to this edition include professors Wendy Bacon, Duncan Bloy, Rodney Tiffen, Mark Pearson and Denis Cryle (an assessment of Rupert Murdoch’s flagship newspaper, The Australian, two decades on).

Dr Lidberg, who also contributes an article about Australian media attitudes to accountability, was assisted for the edition by Professor Chris Nash and managing editor Professor David Robie.

He said he hoped the issue would be the beginning of an ongoing debate where media practice accountability would be elevated to the same level as media regulation.

Conference theme
It is a theme for the annual conferences of both the Journalism Education Association of Australia (JEAA) and Journalism Education Association of New Zealand (JEANZ) next month.

Professor Wendy Bacon has also contributed an article for the new Frontline section of the journal devoted to a “research journalism” strategy in an academic environment.

“Over the last two decades, the history of journalism research in universities has been a dynamic and intellectually rewarding one,” writes Bacon, who is editor of Frontline.

“Frontline will build a public archive of examples of journalism research and exegeses to assist those who embark on the challenging process of critiquing their own work.”

• Table of contents of the PJR October edition
• Pacific Journalism Review
• David Robie on independent student media 

Behind the Ratu Mara media feeding frenzy

A COUPLE of blog postings ago, Café Pacific observed about the ongoing Ratu Tevita Mara media circus: "This entire saga has all the hallmarks of a carefully orchestrated virtual internet coup. At least, of the propaganda kind. One virtual coupmaster getting one-upmanship over the grand coup master."

And a case of one of dictator Voreqe Bainimarama's key military henchmen trying belatedly to save his skin.

But the YouTube led publicity campaign from the safety of Tonga poses a series of questions that mainstream media don't appear to be asking. Who are the media minders behind Mara massaging his military message and what is their agenda? Why are things being taken at face value? Where is the evidence backing up Ratu Tevita's sweeping allegations?

And why is the anonymous, unreliable and unethical website Coup4.5 suddenly being taken as a credible news source by some mainstream media?

One prominent Fiji journalist sums up the views of several by telling Café Pacific: "Definitely a very suave team is guiding [Mara], directing what he says and his answers to questions. They are also directing his statements and allegations so that it comes in intervals every 2-3 days to sustain and feed the media frenzy."

One of the rare pieces through the smear and counter smear fog to make some sense, is this blog posting by Croz Walsh, a retired professor from the University of the South Pacific. He asks the very questions that journalists should be asking:

Come clean, Ratu Tevita: Who really assaulted the women?
The headlined accusation "Bainimarama beats women" is the latest statement by Ratu Tevita that has been reported - on trust - by the international media.

He promised us that all would be revealed over time but for the moment he is releasing one small story after another that keep the media in titivation mode.

First came the release in which he said he was rescued on a fishing trip that went wrong and he'd fled because he wouldn't receive a fair trial. This was followed by the statement that Banimarama laughed at the idea of elections, and that no elections would be held in 2014. We then heard that Bainimarama was taking his orders from Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, a view earlier reported by the blog Coup4.5.

He then accused Bainimarama and Sayed-Khaiyum of corruption and said Bainimarama's salary, paid by Khaiyum's aunt’s accountancy firm, was $700,000 a year. Much of this story was also earlier reported by the blog.

This was followed by general accusations of torture that he said he witnessed, and for which he now apologised, but in which he played no part. He said a small "hit squad" carried out the torture, presumably on Bainimarama's orders. But he was the commanding officer.

And now he claims Bainimarama hit three "pro-democracy" women — Visili Buadromo, Jackie Koroi and Laisa Digitaki — at the Queen Elizabeth Barracks just before Christmas in 2006. He says that Bainimarama's son was the other officer who hit the women, and made the point that Bainimarama only hit women; he never saw him hit men.

Coup 4.5, Michael Field and others have now taken up the "Bainimarama hits women" story. I have little doubt that the general outline of the story is correct. The coup had only just taken place. The situation was unstable, and there was active opposition from a small group of "pro-democracy" activists, including the three women, that was enthusiastically reported by the local and international media. The military was unsure of its position and sought to silence opposition by intimidation. Not nice, but over-reaction is not unknown even in democracies, when the established order is unsure of itself.

But here the details become hazy. Ratu Tevita says people had always thought it was Pita Driti (charged earlier this month for sedition - together with Ratu Tevita - and attempted mutiny) who beat the women. But he was there and saw what happened. It was not Driti, he said, but Bainimarama, dressed in brown overalls with no military insignia, who started the attack, joined by his son.

He said it was dark and all that could be seen were silhouettes.

But afterwards, not one of the women mentioned Bainimarama or his son. They maintained it was two other officers, Pita Driti and Ratu Tevita.

Laisa Digitaki said she recognised Driti's voice, and both she and Visilia Buadromo told Human Rights Watch, probably the world’s leading independent organisation dedicated to defending and protecting human rights, that they were assaulted by Driti—and Ratu Tevita Mara.

This leaves one wondering.

Why, only now 4½ years after the incident, do we hear Bainimarama's name mentioned for the first time? Apart from the obvious purpose of smearing Bainimarama, is it possible that Ratu Tevita is also trying to cover up his part and Driti's part in the assault? These are the sorts of questions the media should be asking him before they take his word on trust.

They should be asking how he has so much knowledge on so wide a range of topics. I doubt he can have witnessed all, and his statements can be no more reliable than his sources, which —other than Coup 4.5— he has not revealed. The media should ask him about his sources.

They should also ask what's happened to the documents he said he brought with him on the boat to Tonga that he said would prove what he said. Did he show them to Barbara Dreaver when she interviewed him soon after his arrival in the old British Residence’s house in Nuku'alofa? Did she ask to see them? Has anyone seen them? Has anyone thought of asking to see them?

He now says he's thinking of making a statement to the UN about human rights abuses in Fiji. For this he will have to rely on more than the prompting of Coup 4.5. He will need the documents.

Otherwise, on this issue at least, it will be his word against those of the women who said he assaulted them— and not Bainimarama.

• TruthforFiji - Ratu Tevita Mara's YouTube channel

Memo to PINA – get your Vanuatu facts right

SO PINA finally came to the party, after days of Pacific journos asking around the region’s traps why hasn’t the main media organisation taken up the cudgels of media freedom? Yet again? PINA finally acted four days after the March 4 brutal political attack and assault on Vanuatu Daily Post publisher Marc Neil-Jones. The publisher plans to take a private prosecution against Public Utilities Minister Harry Iauko and the “gang of eight” henchmen, who were allegedly led by the politician in the attack, if the police fail to act.

Current PINA (Pacific Islands News Association) president Moses Stevens is also from Vanuatu, but Stevens and Neil-Jones have been feuding for years. PINA should have been at the forefront of the Pacific protests. Instead, it wagged the tail.

Auckland-based Pacific Media Centre made a statement on Saturday as soon as the front page of the Daily Post had been sighted, branding the attack as “mindless brutality”, the Cook Islands-based Pacific Freedom Forum followed on Sunday with condemnation. Then followed the International Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and Samoa-based Pasifika Media Association on Monday with Fiji-based PINA and the Media Asosiesen blong Vanuatu (MAV) bringing up the rear on Tuesday.

Even then there was a grudging sting in Stevens’ statement with a reference to alleged “biased reporting”. Here, Neil-Jones, holds PINA to account for its attempt at qualifying the seriousness of the attack.

THANKS TO PINA AND MAV

By Marc Neil-Jones

I have today sent the following email to Moses Stevens thanking him for his PINA statement of support. I have also thanked MAV for their support.

Much appreciated Moses. Despite our differences, this assault is an outrage and Iauko should be sacked. I thank you for PINA support despite us not being members currently.

One thing in relation to your press statement on Iauko's allegation of “bias” [in] reporting. The “news” he reacted to on Friday was Transparency International's weekly opinion column which is vetted by lawyers and based on their own investigations into corruption. It is an opinion piece based on fact and documentary evidence in their investigations, vetted by a qualified lawyer. Same as the two opinionated letters to the editor [published] on that same day voicing anger and irritation over Iauko's actions in suspending the Airports Vanuatu board. My article earlier in the week on him suspending the AV board did not need comment from him as I had a copy of his letter to the board suspending them and I spoke to two board members and the expat adviser who had been told not to come into the office, all of whom confirmed what had happened.

I was shown the letter from Iauko. I was asked to investigate the legality of it and this was where the news thrust was as Iauko as Minister of Public Utilities is only a 50 percent shareholder in Airports Vanuatu and the Minister of Finance has the other 50 percent. I received advice from our lawyers his action was illegal if he had not got the support of Moana Carcasses. I called Moana and he confirmed that he knew nothing about it, had not been contacted by Iauko before he sent letters out suspending the board over allegations of malpractice and that Iauko could not do anything without his support and that what he had done was not right.

News hook
That was the news hook. I had proof the letter had been sent without any approval from Carcasses.

I didn't need to contact Iauko as he couldn't deny it as I had the letter. It was not “bias” in any way and just because we write about a minister if we are basing the story on documentary evidence, eg Joe Ligo's official report on corruption in Lands while he was Director-General of Lands and had the power to get any file, document or staff he needed to do a thorough investigation for a report requested by the PM. He was the most senior civil servant in lands when he did the investigation and report, which is why it is so damaging. I simply quoted direct from the official report and raised questions on why tenders hadn't been followed that resulted in Kalsakau getting land without a tender for 1/10th of its value.

The government could have got vt50 million but they got next to nothing. I accept VBTC [Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corporation] would have to get “the other side” in order to put them in the best possible light as they are owned by government but we do not need to, provided ethics are followed and the news item is based on fact and not opinion. If Iauko had a problem with Transparency International's criticism of him, he should have taken it up with them or take them to court in the normal way.

You have in fact inferred that we were “biased” and have asked for more balanced reporting. This seems to be agreeing with the minister and you voicing your concerns. I have issues with that as the news on Iauko was perfectly good, followed standard journalism practice and was no excuse for him breaking the law and clearly breaching the Leadership Code.

Transparency International are a very well known NGO fighting corruption and Marie-Noelle Patterson has a huge reputation following her years as Ombudsman. I have no problem whatsoever with their opinions and we do not need permission from Iauko or his comment before we run the column or a letter to the editor. I hope you can see this Moses.

Assaulted a number of times
For your information, I have been assaulted a number of times and not twice as is being claimed. Correctional Services with Jackson Noel a couple of years ago which has not gone to court; Christopher Emele's family with two men and two women when I was breaking news he didn't like on the VMA; assault and rough handling by the police when I was thrown in jail for demanding an officer who assaulted Sam Taffo at a rugby game between [the Police team] and USP [University of the South Pacific] be suspended; assault by Morkin Steven when he was Minister of Finance at Trader Vics, when he reacted to news of his drunken behaviour and car crash was carried.

I let that go as he profusely apologised afterwards. I was also assaulted by one of Willie Jimmy’s boys over a news item on a court case involving Willie that was in the paper when I was having a friendly conversation with Willie Jimmy at Club Vanuatu. If you recall, Willie then called up and told me to keep him out of the story or he would come and smash the office up - and I refused.

Sabby Natongs sent his boys in when we broke the news of his private security force assisting the VMF. He reacted and tried to stop us printing and I was assaulted. He made me do a custom ceremony at Blacksands and invited VBTC radio and TV to cover my apology.

A year or two later, Natapei as PM admitted in Parliament that Tanna boys under Sabby were helping the VMF and now Sabby even advertises it. He used custom against me when the paper was accurate all along. There have been other minor instances in the 1990s I have forgotten about. Brain cells tend to go when you are hit around so much!

Health issues
At 53 years of age and an insulin dependent diabetic with health issues [and] not writing much, how bad does this look when Iauko needs to come in [and] bash an older guy with eight other people. If he was a real man he would come by himself as I am a lot older and weaker than him.

This clearly isn't right and my problem now is that I am highly cynical of whether the police and female Public Prosecutor will have the balls to take Iauko to court or not. They haven't with my past two assaults.

Marc Neil-Jones
Publisher
Vanuatu Daily Post
Port Vila

Images: Top: Marc Neil-Jones (centre) and staff; PINA president Moses Stevens. - Pacific Scoop. Middle: Marc with Café Pacific publisher David Robie in the press room during better times. - Photo: Del Abcede/PMC

SIGN THE STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST JOURNALISTS IN THE PACIFIC PETITION

• Reporters Sans Frontières statement on the assault in French
• Journalists at loggerheads - Alex Perrottet on Reportage
• 'Gang of brutes'
• Cafe Pacific on past assaults
  

Two views on Rika and the ANU

Crosbie Walsh: Netani Rika off to not so ivory tower

During the Vietnam war, anthropologists in northern Thailand and Laos were unsuspectingly passing on information about the Hill Tribes that helped the US war effort. Over a longer time period, banks of audio equipment in laboratories at the East-West Center in Hawaii helped students learn hundreds of languages, many spoken by people in politically unstable areas of interest to American Intelligence. Further back, prestigious colleges at Oxford and Cambridge offered scholarships and training for Britain's Third World Elite, and Harvard produced a worldwide generation of right-thinking economists and businessmen, who we now see got it all wrong.

Further south, in Australia, the National University (ANU) has programmes, scholarships, workshops and conferences to inform and support its government's policies and "win the hearts and minds" of overseas scholars from countries in which Australia has a special interest. Fiji has moved up this list in recent years. It is largely thanks to ANU that we have heard the opinions of ANU academics, Jonathon Fraenkel and Brij Lal, both vociferous opponents of the Bainimarama government. It was ANU that gave former Fiji Land Force commander Jone Baledrokadroka a scholarship to research the military. And it is ANU that has just given former Fiji Times editor-in-chief Netani Rika a scholarship to write up his memoirs.

The Australian reports that Rika will "spend time in Canberra writing his account of the almost four years he has spent contesting military government control of the media." Intrigueingly, Rika said: "We were always willing to print both sides of the story. But the censors allowed only one side. In such cases, the paper spiked the stories altogether to spare readers being misled."

I have little doubt he truly believes this but an independent, objective content analysis of the paper from 2006 on (and before for that matter) would, in my opinion, show most definitely that if both sides were printed, they were never printed equally. I stand by my crude assessment of a 3.5:1 ratio of opposition to government. Content analysis is a research method where qualitative data are measured and quantified, in this case by categorising the frequency, placement, coverage, extent and "bias" of newspaper headings and articles.

Professor Crosbie Walsh is the retired former director of development studies at the University of the South Pacific. His blog is Fiji: The Way Was, Is and Can Be

Scott MacWilliam: 'Fish and chips' wrapping paper

Regarding Netani Rika's move from Fiji to ANU. It is of course pure mythology that universities are or have been ivory towers, if that means unconnected with countries' political economies. This is especially the case where universities see themselves central to the formulation and implementation of government policies, as most do. However, universities are also often complex and diverse institutions: it is not often the case that a homogeneous or monolithic "line" appears over a whole institution.

One part of a university may take one direction, and in the case of the military regime and Australian policy toward Fiji become almost blinkered in pursuing that line, while other academics and parts of the institution take other positions on the same question. Especially where students are post-graduates with considerable employment experience and may even be on leave from important jobs in their home countries, it is unlikely that they will be too greatly influenced by academics who try to sell 'a correct line' against the students' own experiences and views.

As a senior ni-Vanuatu public servant, enrolled in a class in another part of the ANU than that where Netani Rika is to be lodged, said just last year: "I will always be grateful to AusAID, the Australian government and people for the education I am receiving at ANU. However I am also a Melanesian and my loyalties lie back home. We don't agree with Australia and New Zealand on Fiji and the support I have received from AusAID does not change that."

Who knows - Rika's views may even become better informed by contact with a more diverse range of views as are held by other South Pacific people at ANU, of whom there are quite a few who don't agree with Australian policy either. If not, he is unlikely to influence anyone other than those who already concur with him.

As for the "old" Fiji Times from the late 1990s, including when Rika was working there, it was largely just "fish and chips" wrapping paper.

Dr Scott MacWilliam lectures on development policy in the Crawford School of Economics and Government in ANU and was formerly at the University of the South Pacific.

Pictured: Netani Rika (centre) with forner colleagues at the Fiji Times. Photo: FT.

Check out the views on Pacific Scoop of former New Zealand diplomat Gerald McGhie, who is now an independent commentator and who says essentially that Australia and New Zealand should keep a low profile on Fiji and leave it to other Pacific countries to resolve the impasse - their way.