|
Former USP journalism head Dr Marc Edge "on edge" at a Media and Democracy
symposium in Suva last September. Photo: Café Pacific |
IN RECENT weeks, the Fiji blogosphere has run hot over attempts by the ousted former head of journalism of the University of the South Pacific, Dr Marc Edge, a self-styled
“counterpropagandist”, to portray himself as some kind of martyr for the Fiji media freedom cause. His claims peaked with an allegation that he “feared my safety was in jeopardy” in a curiously lop-sided
Radio Australia interview with journalist Bruce Hill.
However,
Café Pacific today exposes another side of the story. It had been an open secret for months at USP and in media education circles around the Pacific that Dr Edge was on the way out after the shortest tenure ever of any expatriate journalism coordinator – barely serving half of a three-year contract. He was dumped after sustained and embarrassing complaints by students, colleagues and media academics in at least two other Pacific Islands Forum countries. The situation had become untenable for the Canadian lecturer as he was perceived to be “waging war” on his students. Initially, he was
“relieved” of his position as acting head of journalism with a humiliating public statement by
USP management on November 14 and then he was
gone from the faculty staff by Christmas.
|
Part of the USP statement about Dr Edge's "demotion" on November 14, 2012. |
But there was no inkling of any of this in Bruce Hill’s Radio Australia
interview on January 25. (Although Hill did ask Edge whether he had been dismissed or resigned and got a "cannot comment" reply). Nor did Hill put the obvious question to Edge about why he had used the Fiji Media Tribunal mechanism to file a controversial complaint against a local media organisation that he had been accusing of practising
“self-censorship” – conveniently using the very
Media Industry Development Decree he had been condemning for months. Edge
blamed his demise at USP solely on the military-backed regime and Qorvis Communications, a US-based media spin company contracted to the Suva government, and ignored the journalism programme wreckage - his legacy: