Pacific climate change, ‘failed states’ and media muddles

David Robie being interviewed by Litia Ava on Fiji National University's Radio FM88.6
on "open day". Also pictured are Jessica Gounder and Wati Talebula.
Photo: Varanisese Nasilasila (FNU)

WHAT is it with the Fiji media? Or at least with many of on-the-job reporters? Bylines on slightly rehashed press releases, regularly misquoted subjects and "direct quotes" from people when the reporter isn’t even present to hear them … the list goes on.

Café Pacific publisher David Robie has just experienced more of the same with his latest conference presentations at the University of the South Pacific. At USP for a “conference within a conference” with the theme “Islands and Nations: ‘Failed states’ and the environment" at the Pacific Science Inter-congress last week.

Last time it was The Fiji Times at fault. Now it is the Fiji Sun. Reporter Rinu Shyyam correctly reported the call for a new “media morality” (without explaining the context) but the rest of her story was a garbled parody of what Robie actually said.

And it seems the reporter wasn't actually at the presentation at all – she has simply rehashed a University of the South Pacific press release.

The problem is that reporter Shyyam has simply uplifted paraphrased comments from the media release and then reintroduced them into her story as direct quotes and made nonsense of the statements.

News media ownership in NZ - updates

An update from Bill Rosenberg about his media ownership in New Zealand monitoring file (cartoon by Malcolm Evans from a previous PJR cover):
A revised version of my paper "News media ownership in New Zealand" is now available, which includes updates to the 15 October 2007 version, including some suggestions from readers (many thanks). The changes are outlined below.
It is available either by clicking the above link or going to the CAFCA web site. I am unlikely to release another update for at least 2-3 months. If you do not wish to be notified of future updates, please reply to this message and I will remove you from my list (with no offence taken!).
The changes from the 15 October version:

• reporting some of the findings of the 2007 survey of journalists which are relevant to ownership pressures ("Profile 2007. The big NZ journalism survey: Underpaid, under-trained, under-resourced, unsure about the future - but still idealistic", by James Hollings, Geoff Lealand, Alan Samson and Elspeth Tilley, Massey University and Waikato University, Pacific Journalism Review, September 2007, 13 (2), pp. 175-197)
• a number of further takeovers (including NZ Life and Leisure, Marlborough Media), and launches (a new give-away newspaper in Dunedin).
• Sky/Prime winning the rights to the 2010 Winter and 2012 Summer
  Olympics
• updates and detail on digital TV, including the Stratos FreeView channel
• more on Alt TV, death of the Radio Pacific name, MediaWorks pushing the boundaries, Ironbridge
• numerous minor updates and corrections

For those needing the URL, it is as follows. As I release updates, I
will simply replace the document under the same name as the latest
version - mediaown.pdf - so links do not need to be updated.

Comments are, as always, welcome.
Bill Rosenberg

Bill Rosenberg's evolving media ownership file at CAFCA