Samoa Observer's Savea on Tuilaepa, Tavita and rubbish in the wind

"Man of the Decade" Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi
.... mocking the Samoa Observer.

SAVEA SANO MALIFA'S reply to a dreary moan against the Samoa Observer by Samoan PM Tuilaepa: Priceless.

Talofa i Lau Afioga i le Ali’i Palemia,
Lau Afioga Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi

Thank you very much for your kind advice. It is always a pleasure receiving a letter from you knowing that you have so much work on your plate these days.

And now that you’ve added the Legislative Assembly to your list of portfolios, well, I’m wondering how on earth you can possibly make the time to write all these letters.

I personally would like to congratulate you for your patience, and especially for your ability to just shrug off all those silly criticisms leveled at you, as insignificant ravings of madmen, fools and idiots.

You are absolutely right. Because that, precisely, is the mark of a man with an honorable vision for his country which he is determined to fulfill, despite what anyone else says.

I truly admire you for that.

Watchdog ... Savea Sano Malifa.
Photo: IPI

As for the “mistakes” and the “inaccuracies” in this newspaper’s stories that you’re seeing all the time, well, I want to say thank you for pointing these things out to us.

It’s a shame really, but then I just don’t know what the answer is. I only wish we were all perfect and flawless like you and Terry Tavita but the truth is that we are not.

Still, I want to say I apologize unequivocally for all the idiotic mistakes you see in the paper day after day. Honestly I have no excuses to offer.

I am sorry also that this paper’s “the English publications (have) noticeably fallen in standards in recent times” due to poor editing, but I want to remind you that it is the very high VAGST, import duties and taxes combined, that are directly responsible.

So if you want to see that what you say during an interview is “read (accurately) across the globe” on this newspaper’s website, you should do two things:

1. Lower the VAGST on newsprint, film, plates, computers, cameras and voice recorders from 15% to 5%, as it is the case in other Pacific Island countries, where all newspapers are considered an educational necessity.

2. If you want your interview to be published on the website, make sure you speak in English. This way, since your interview is now captured in the voice recorder, no translation is needed and every sentence you utter therefore will make “darn (good) sense.”

"Lapdog" ... Tupuola Terry Tavita.
Photo: Savali

As for your offer of Tupuola Terry Tavita to work with us we have to say no thanks. Please don’t get me wrong. I only wish you did not bring this name up. For someone who is known around the world as your “lapdog,” how can you possibly say you’re extending “his Good Samaritan … standards,” when we know the man has no principles whatsoever.

Let me tell you a story. Several years ago Tavita came asking for a job. He said he had been a teacher at Samoa College, and he wanted to work as a reporter. Why did he leave Samoa College, I asked. He did not give a credible explanation.

Anyway, I gave him a job. He became a reporter. Sometime later, he approached me again and said he had been given a scholarship to do his Masters at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, and he wanted time off from work.

I gave him time off. Later still when he returned from Suva, he came back to work. Asked if he had finished his Masters, he said yes, but he had to finish his thesis.

Well, what do you want to do, work or finish your thesis? He wanted to work, so I gave him work. Again.

At the time, we had a policy – we still have it – that no reporter conducting an interview at any function – public or otherwise - helped himself to food and drinks if such were served.

The rule is that when the interview is done and the photos are taken, the reporter leaves. In those days, all of our reporters respected this rule except Terry Tavita.

Since he would not leave until he was fed and soused, we gave him money for his drinks somewhere else, on the understanding that he left the function immediately after his interview.

Later still, he had an argument with the paper’s editor at the time, Peter Lomas, and Terry Tavita stormed out the door. He did not have the decency to come and tell me what his quarrel with Lomas was about.

I felt let down and sad.

Later still I was told that he went straight to Prime Minister Tuilaepa’s office, and he was hired to work for the Savali. You know the rest.

And then he started attacking me in the Savali, which is a government paper funded with my taxes. I never said a word.

Since then he has been developing a defiant standard of reporting in defense of his “boss” – Tuilaepa – so that he inevitably earned the unflattering moniker “lapdog” among his media colleagues.

And you want him to come and work as a “good Samaritan “ in this paper? No, thank you very much. Keep him there. You need someone like him to defend you and protect you.

As for your worries about the clothes you’re wearing when your picture is taken, well, honestly you should not. Personally, I don’t care about what clothes I’m wearing anyway. If it hadn’t been for common decency and the fear of disturbing the peace, I would go around with what I was born with.

I reckon you should think the same way too. Besides, clothes are just skin-deep. It is what’s inside you that count. I know you’ve got a good heart and that is all that matters. Trust me. The rest is all rubbish thrashed about in the wind.

And lastly Tuilaepa, you are a handsome man. We all know that. You are handsome both outside and inside. So that wherever in the world your photo is taken, it is published and your fame is assured. And always remember that it is not the photo that counts but the man behind the photo.

So don’t be paranoid. You are still our “Man of the Decade” whether you believe me or not. And that’s the naked truth.

But thank you for your kind words about my “growing old gracefully and, well, comfortably.” I know. I’m finding it rather hard not being able to grow old fast enough. Which is why I must thank you once again for those mind-wrecking court cases that sort of really hastened the aging process along.

God bless you too, Tuilaepa.

Sincerely yours,
Savea Sano Malifa

• Source: Pacific Media Watch

The Pacific's new PacMA - a vision for media freedom

A FLURRY of messages. First the announcement of yet another Pacific media freedom group - PacMA, born in Samoa. Plus backpatting messages from supporters around the region. And then a riposte from the incumbent media "freedom" body, PINA, in Suva, claiming it has the strongest membership it has had for five years - 21. One wit from the Solomon Islands wrote:

First we started the PFF which was to be the watchdog which PINA wasn't, has it achieved that? And now we are starting the Pacific Media Association. What's next? PPA, PFP, PMF, PIFA, we have a problem in Fiji and, as crude as this may sound, whatever we do outside of Fiji cannot bring international attention to the plight of Fiji media. It is the Fijian media itself, on the ground in Fiji, who have to take Pacific journalism to the next level - that is put their lives on the line, if they are to get international recognition.

But this time there is optimism that this new body will have some serious clout - and actually use it. Over at the Pacific Media Centre in Auckland, PacMA's deputy chair Kalafi Moala has outlined the vision of the new body. Café Pacific republishes it here:

By Kalafi Moala

In the days immediately following the announcement of the launch of the Pacific Media Association (PacMA), the question has often been raised about why Samoa was chosen as the place to register this new organisation.

Last week on August 10, several media owners and journalists from the Pacific region met in Apia to form the new association. A new constitution was formulated and registration of an incorporated society was sought with the government of Samoa.

In addition to a new code of ethics for the organisation and its members, a set of bylaws is being currently written to guide the conduct of the affairs of the organisation.

Headed by probably the Pacific region’s most successful and experienced media owner and journalist, Samoa’s Sano Savea Malifa, the men and women that make up the organisation promise to be the embodiment of PacMA’s mission to promote and defend values of media freedom, ethics and good governance, and provide training for all media in the Pacific region.

Malifa plays a major role in the selection of Samoa as the founding ground for PacMA.

But it is more than that. Samoa hosts some of the most effective media operations in the region – be it print, broadcasting, or on-line. And these operations are not flash-in-the-pan overnight sensations.

They have paid the price in years of covering the hard yards. In the case of Malifa and his print media enterprise, he has suffered in previous years many obstacles, including countless lawsuits, physical attacks, the burning down of his press plant, and other disheartening inconveniences.

Samoa, however, has gone through its own quiet reform in so many facets of its political, economic, and social life. The result has been an environment conducive to the development of media freedom and journalistic professionalism.

The National University of Samoa is running a journalism school, and who knows what other educational development in media is ahead at this growing institution?

Free media environment
The government of Samoa has not only given the island nation comparable political and social stability, but has been largely responsible for creating a free media environment.

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi has himself been a staunch supporter of media freedom. Despite having been at times scrutinised by the local media, he has been a mature and responsible leader in his response.

On the evening that marked the launch of PacMA, Tuilaepa, despite a busy schedule, and another function he needed to attend, “dropped in” and congratulated the founders of PacMA, encouraged the members in its stand for media freedom, and gave a speech that welcomed the organisation.

He was especially thrilled that the new organisation was founded and will be operating out of Samoa.

It was hard to think of too many other island nations in the Pacific that can match the welcome, the hospitality, and the media freedom environment that Samoa offers.

What makes PacMA a unique media association is that it is to be primarily driven by media owners, the journalists and media practitioners who work in the industry. Too often organisations end up being run by bureaucrats whose ties to the actual professional services provided for people are no longer there.

It is time a media association is run primarily by people who are engaged in media as part of their everyday occupation.

Another major facet of the PacMA ethos that is fundamental to its formation and ongoing practice is that of independence from the aid infrastructure in the region that often results in “funding traps” in which service organisations become entangled and unable to fulfil their mission.

Obviously, there is no organisation that can survive without funding. But PacMA has chosen to be self-funded, and allow Pacific generosity to be a sustainable provider. There will be specific projects, however, from time to time, for which the organization will seek funding assistance.

The consensus at the founding meeting was: “We will not let funding dictate our vision and mission agendas.”

So be it. PacMA wants to be independent of what has become a very dangerous trend in NGO and regional organisational operations, which is a total dependence on donor funding agencies.

PacMA has its work cut out, not only in reestablishing the traditional media association roles and responsibilities in the region, but also how to wisely facilitate the new realities of emerging new media, gender driven media initiatives, and the future of our industry rooted in the growing youth media practitioners that need all the encouragement and help they can get.

Kalafi Moala, publisher and chief executive of the Nuku'alofa-based Taimi Media Network, is deputy chair of PacMA and himself a key campaigner for media freedom Pacific-style. Photo: Kalafi Malifa - Josie Latu/PMC/File.

Note: PacMA has been renamed the Pasifika Media Association (PasiMA).

• New Pacific media body PacMA formed at Samoa meeting