MIDA’s chair finds Fiji TV guilty of ‘hate speech’ and blasts bloggers

Audio podcast of today's media conference with MIDA chairperson Ashwin Raj on YouTube from the Pacific Media Centre.

SO THERE we have it. Fiji’s Media Industry Development Authority chairperson Ashwin Raj is going to stamp out all hate and race speech in his country with the stroke of a decree-backed pen.

A momentous mind shift is going to happen just like that. The media “chilling” climate will ensure this unfolds. He thinks ...

Raj is “quite perturbed by the level of public discourse” in Fiji as the country moves toward the return-to-democracy general election on September 17.

“Masquerading itself as an exercise in freedom of expression, political discourse has, in fact, descended to unabashed racial vilification and in some instances its content is tantamount to injurious or hate speech,” he railed at a MIDA media conference in Suva today.

“What is even more disconcerting is the complicity of select Fijian journalists and media, either wittingly or those that remain oblivious to the laws of Fiji despite several awareness workshops on the Crimes Decree, the Media Industry Development Decree and the Constitution.”

In defence of Fiji media freedom - and responsibility

AT LAST, a credible and constructive media review in Fiji. After all the rhetoric, grandstanding and manipulative misinformation on both sides in the sordid Jim Anthony affair, we finally have a report that has sliced through the smokescreens and come up with a workable proposal for the immediate future. It won’t please everybody, of course, but it ranks well alongside the very credible New Zealand Press Council review in 2007 – same year as the long-delayed Anthony report.

Full marks to the Fiji Media Council for deciding to commission its own independent review. But it was a bit late – the initiative had been stolen by the regime supporters. Strangely, the mainstream media has remained rather muted about the report since it became public last week. Could it be that the rather mild criticisms are a bit too much for an industry that has prided itself in its self-absorbed “quality”? There are some high moments for the local media, but there are also some embarrassing lows. And the lows have much to do with the the routine “he said/she said” reports, churnalism and the large number of high school leavers who enter newsrooms with minimal education and limited media training.

The review’s report card acknowledges the fine effort “against the odds” in support of media freedom in Fiji, but for the balancing “media responsibility” category and relations with the government, its verdict is effectively: “Must try harder.”

A “proactive” move by the Fiji Media Council to pre-empt the Anthony report would have saved a lot of angst in the first place. In fact, being more proactive is one of the prescriptions offered by the review team – Australian Press Council executive secretary Jack Herman, Suliana Siwatibau, chair of the Pacific Centre for Public Integrity (not actually mentioned in her report biography note) and former chairman of Munro Leys, The Fiji Times legal firm: “This is particularly so in the area of press responsibility.”

The review quite rightly dismisses the Anthony report, commissioned by the Fiji Human Rights Commission, as “chillingly Orwellian in its main theme: he argued that the only way to preserve media freedom and independence was to sacrifice them.” Anthony's Singaporean model “Media Tribunal” would “inevitably become another arm of government control of the Fiji media”. The review also doesn’t agree with the Anthony conclusion that “self-regulation has failed”. But it does go on to raise several suggestions for improving self-regulatory processes in Fiji so that they are more credible.

Panel members looked back to an earlier media industry review (Thomson Foundation, 1996) for some guidance and noted several points raised then which they believe still need to be addressed:

The main concerns are that the council is not of sufficiently high profile, that it has not been active enough in pressing for improvements in media standards, and it has appeared more frequently to be vocal about the need for media freedom, without a concomitant voice of media responsibility.

The main obstacle cited was a lack of funding, with the council relying on the “goodwill” of a voluntary chair and secretary and no professional administration or office. The review complimented inaugural chair Daryl Tarte and secretary Bob Pratt in “seeking to safeguard the freedom and independence of the media in very challenging circumstances” in the wake of four coups over two decades.

But in the absence of regular [council] reports, and of the council being as outspoken on the occasional lapse in media responsibility as it is in defence of media freedom, the perception has emerged that the Media Council has not performed up to its own high ideals … This need to better balance the freedom and responsibility aspects of its activities was a constant theme in submissions…

The review also questioned the media organisations’ commitment to the council. It called on members for stronger observation of “ethics and standards” and to at least double the financial commitment (from the current F$30,000 a year budget).

There is no doubt that the Media Council, to be effective, needs to raise its profile within Fiji society – and to be seen as a body committed equally to press freedom and press responsibility. All sections of the society to whom the review spoke, including government, want to see free media informing the public on matters of public interest and concern. A robust and well-respected Media Council will greatly assist that task: there will be less need for sections of the society to issue calls for a regulatory oversight of the media where a high-profile Media Council is seen as effectively and efficiently carrying out its tasks, and offering a free complaints procedure to the consumers of media.

Recommendations include:

• Appointment of a paid chair and executive secretary to deal with complaints quickly and attentively;
• Offer of face-to-face mediation as an alternative dispute resolution;
• Clarifying the basis of complaints;
• Restructuring the complaints panel to make it more independent of the council
• The complaints panel to be chaired by an independent convenor, not the Media Council chair as at present;
• Complaints hearings to be arranged "without delay";
• Reducing use of the legal waiver to cases where "contemporary legal action is likely";
• Setting a 30-day limit for complaints;
• Supplementing adjudication with a "series of graduated penalties", including censure (as recommended by the NZ Press Council review in 2007); and
• Allowing public members of the council to act as “proactive” media monitors.

Among other recommendations, the review panel called for a “working journalist” to be a representative on a restructured, more streamlined council, The panel also noted in a section about training that the council “might well play a part in improving work conditions – and thereby standards”.

So what now of the media law “promulgation” long promised/threatened by the government? Hopefully, it will be tossed into the regime’s waste bin. Give the Fiji Media Council a chance to get its house in order.

• Fiji media review calls for 'proactive' role on standard - Pacific Media Watch/PMC
  
• Council to work on govt and media relations
• Full text of the 2009 Fiji Media Council independent review report

Other side of the Fiji media harassment coin

CROZ WALSH, in his revealing Fiji blog, has embarrassed local media with his probing behind the headlines questions and revelations in recent weeks. For too long some Pacific news groups have been able to routinely hoist the “media freedom” flag over some issues that actually involve questions of professionalism and good practice. In the absence of public scrutiny by robust media accountability and issue programmes – such as Media Watch and Media Report in Australia and Mediawatch and Media7 in New Zealand – it is left to people like Croz Walsh and a handful of civil society critics in Fiji to prick the appropriate balloons.

One posting by Walsh this week exposed the media games playing over the controversial UN/Commonwealth letters leaked to The Fiji Times and Fiji Television, apparently before it reached the regime PM Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama. Other postings put the spotlight on how local reporting of US Ambassador Steven McGann’s speech on American-Muslim relations was so distorted against the regime that it amounted to “propaganda”.

Media reports said the police search warrant at Fiji TV was for a letter from Dr Sitiveni Halapua, director of the Pacific Islands Development Programme, and Dr Robin Nair, director of the Centre for International and Regional Affairs at the University of Fiji, asking Bainimarama for a meeting. Another search warrant was served on the Fiji Times for a copy of the letter written by the United Nations and the Commonwealth. The unsigned letter was a joint statement from the UN and the Commonwealth on their agreement to support the president's political dialogue forum.

Walsh rapped the International Federation of Journalists for its prompt media release, claiming that “crying wolf” too often over regime intimidation undermined IFJ credibility for “when it really matters”. Interestingly, he didn’t mention the PINA-linked Pacific Freedom Forum, which also circulated a media release condemning the search warrant process and intimidation. It quoted American Samoa-based co-chair Monica Miller as claiming:

The latest round of incidents provide a disturbing picture of the level of fear-mongering being blatantly practised by Fiji’s law enforcers against media professionals.

However, Walsh raised the spectre of mail tampering and the fact that police must respond to allegations of theft. In the end, National Federation Party general secretary Pramod Rae came clean and publicly admitted he had had a hand in provoking the “media intimidation” by leaking the letter to the media before PM Bainimarama had received it. NFP columnist Kamal Iyer largely ignored all this in his regular Fiji Times column condemning the "sword of Damocles":

To the ordinary unsuspecting citizen, it would seem that the two media outlets had committed treason, given the clockwork precision with which police performed their duty, not forgetting the rapidity of their action.

But Walsh’s blog provided another side to the story (partially reproduced here):

Wednesday, March 11: The Fiji Times reported ("Police search two news media offices for letters") that police have searched Fiji TV and Fiji Times offices for letters addressed to the interim PM. Police wanted to obtain copies of the letters and know how they had been obtained. Earlier the PM said he had not yet received one of the letters. If this were true, someone was tampering with the mail, and passing it on to others to whom it is not addressed, who then made the letters' contents public. Police must respond to accusations of theft or the publication of letters to which an individual or the media has no legal right.

The very same day, Wednesday, relying entirely on what they had been told from Fiji, the International Federation of Journalists condemned police (and by inference government) action as "harassment of Fiji media"...

Deeper things may be afoot than the IFJ knows. The whole situation may have been staged. For the IFJ to "cry wolf" every time an office is searched could mean they will not be listened to when it really matters.

Walsh also cited the Fiji Times editorial about "Intimidation tactics" that warned about a "new level of intimidation" and protests by the Coalition on Human Rights and the Fiji Women's Rights Movement ... and then:

Friday, March 13 ... and the truth is revealed: "Yes, we released letter, says NFP" in the Fiji Times. National Federation Party general secretary Pramod Rae announced he was the person who gave the media the UN/Commonwealth letter which led, as he must have known it would, to the police questioning, the condemnation of police action - and the interim government - by the International Federation of Journalists, further condemnation of assaults on media freedom by the NGO Coalition on Human Rights, and others ...

[Rae's] point that the letter was not a personal letter addressed exclusively to the PM may well be true (and the action of the police, acting properly on a complaint, may therefore have been unwarranted and excessive). But - and my wording is generous - his actions (in the use of the media and today's late revelation) were transparently "mischievous".

Regime spokesman and Deputy Information Minister Major Neumi Leweni claimed Rae's actions were "irresponsible" and "unprofessional" and undermining attempts to "move the country forward". Ironically, the long-awaited Fiji Media Council independent review (not yet public), while complimenting the council on its media freedom activities, has called on the body to step up its work around media responsibility.

How to stir the pot by Pramod Rae - Crosbie Walsh
Media did distort what Ambassador McGann said - Crosbie Walsh
Rae irresponsible, says Leweni
Intimidation tactics - Fiji Times editorial
My way or highway - Fiji Times
Police search media outlets
Ambassador McGann's speech