Samoan 'gangs, drugs and guns' too gung-ho for the BSA

SO THE Samoan government has jumped the gun on the Television New Zealand “gangsta paradise” affair. In its eagerness to win a political point or two over the state-owned broadcaster (which incidentally has just supplied a "Pacific TV" gift of broadcast equipment to Samoa) in its long-standing controversial complaint about TVNZ accuracy, fairness and ethics, the government has itself breached the broadcast industry's watchdog embargo. This is a violation of an important part of the adjudication process, which enables both parties to prepare their response to the orders and to consider an appeal. In fact, Café Pacific wonders what part of the "NOT FOR PUBLICATION" label stamped on each page of the draft ruling, the Samoan government officials did not understand. If it was a court, this would be contempt.

According to TVNZ’s corporate affairs manager Megan Richards, an appeal could well be on the cards. She told Pacific Media Watch that TVNZ had complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority about the embargo breach. TVNZ had expected the adjudication to be released on March 29. Richards said TVNZ was "considering an appeal in this case, which has a number of very unusual aspects. TVNZ stands by the substance of the story and the integrity and professionalism of the journalist concerned" – respected Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver.

The BSA ruled against TVNZ on accuracy and balance grounds in its 25-page adjudication against the news item broadcast on ONE News on April 6 last year and also run on Tagata Pasifika . It has reportedly ordered TVNZ to make a public apology, awarded costs of $5000 to be paid to the Samoan government and $2000 to the Crown. But two other complaints over fairness and the impact on law and order were not upheld by the BSA.

Unsurprisingly, TVNZ is spitting tacks over the adjudication. This ruling signals a growing trend for Pacific governments to use the BSA as a means of waving a big stick against stroppy and independent journalists. Fairfax’s Michael Field faced a similar caning from the BSA following a complaint by the Fiji regime's solicitor-general in September 2008.

Pacific governments 2 - Regional journalists 0.

Radio New Zealand International picked up the Samoan press release but ran five paragraphs of the government’s spin with no follow-up comment or balancing interviews. It did not get comment from TVNZ or mention that the government had broken the embargo:

The Samoan government has welcomed a ruling by the New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority, which found that Television New Zealand breached standard broadcasting laws in a news item suggesting the widespread presence of gangs, drugs and gun smuggling in Samoa.

The complaint was lodged by the Samoan government last April year when it claimed that the item tarnished the country’s image and would dissuade tourists from visiting.

In its ruling, the BSA says the report by Barbara Dreaver presented only one perspective and viewers needed information about the gravity of the problem in a wider context and from other perspectives.

TVNZ has been ordered to make a public statement, pay costs to the Samoa government and the Crown.

Samoa’s prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, says he sees the ruling not so much a victory for his government but a victory for responsible and substantive reporting.

But RNZI didn’t mention the prime minister’s further comments:

There have been far too many incidences of unbalanced reporting with
reporters and editors alike bent on producing and publishing half-cooked, sensationalised stories with the sole aim of stirring up controversy.

The ruling by the BSA is an onus for broadcasters and publishers to produce fair, balanced, in-depth and accurate news items.

There are also some very important lessons there for our local editors and budding journalists in how they do their jobs.

The ruling wasn’t to be found on either BSA online or the Samoan government press releases website.

No doubt there will be plenty of clucking in Samoan media circles, but it doesn’t stem the concerns that many of the region's journalists have about the dreadful threats or vindictive witch hunt faced by Dreaver or the hysterically partisan reporting of the issue in some sections of the Samoan press. It would be unfortunate if the BSA has not balanced its ruling with some stern criticism of the culprits in the Samoan media.

Of course, none of these stories below would have much to do with Samoan “gangs, drugs and guns”, would they?

Cops pay social visit to alleged drug lord's house
Drugs and criminal gangs exposed
Bail hearing for Tagaloasa
Filipaina remains in custody
Inquiry report on police boss role submitted

Pictured: RNZI's report of the "ruling"; TVNZ's Barbara Dreaver; and a still from her "gangs, drugs and guns" story. Other background:

• ‘Gangsta paradise’ story and the Samoan media vendetta
• Pacific reporter fights off smear campaign
• NZ drug trade fuels Samoa gun smuggling - video
• Samoan government press release on the BSA ruling
• Dreaver told off, appeal an option - Samoa Observer
  

'Gangsta paradise' story and the Samoan media vendetta

IF YOU believed the partisan Samoan press about TVNZ’s Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver over the past month, you could be forgiven if you thought she was about to be dispatched on a a witch’s broom to a fiery rendezvous, or simply burnt at a stake outside Aggie Grey’s. She has become Samoan tourism and the media’s public enemy number one. Her April 6 TVNZ report on “guns, gangs and drugs” has been getting a terrible hammering lately in the Apia press and around the media traps. Such is the level of venom, that the issue even forced its way as chief topic at a talanoa session one evening at the UNESCO-funded media freedom conference last week. (A welcome relief from the focus on Fiji). The TVNZ report (and sequel) has generally been branded as a “hatchet job” by Samoa's Newsline, for example, and a Sunday Samoan “editorial” referred to the “evil side of journalism”.

A series of articles, distorted, and – in many cases – clearly defamatory and malicious, have made Barbara Dreaver the target of hostility. Such has been the level of animosity that Dreaver was even reluctant to travel to Apia to take part in this Pacific Freedom Forum debate. She had fears for her safety. How sad and demeaning for Pasifika journalism that one of the people who has worked so hard to build up the Pacific affairs media profile – mostly very positive – in the New Zealand television media scene should be treated in such a vindictive and unprofessional manner. Café Pacific’s David Robie said as much at the Apia talanoa.

The TVNZ programme does have flaws, of course – as much journalism does, once it is put under an intense public forensic microscope. But there is due process to follow here – file a complaint with the Broadcasting Standards Authority and get an independent adjudication based on the facts, not selective and emotive personality attacks. (At least, the Samoan government has finally embarked on this process). How quickly some of the region’s journos descended to the dog-eat-dog level has been a disappointing spectacle. Perhaps some of the Samoan editors have selectively forgotten about “fairness and balance” and they appear to have a perfunctory grasp of media law. Newsline in its May 6 edition even repeated many of the defamatory statements with a frontpage headline claiming “Barbara Dreaver threatens Newsline” (when she is merely trying to get her side of the story heard). Newsline’s Pio Sioa, in an editorial note, offers a lame duck explanation about why the newspaper didn’t run Dreaver’s side of the story in the first place (namely her sworn affidavit of April 22 publicly released by TVNZ in the absence of actually talking to her):

The [daily] Samoa Observer published the affidavit in an issue ahead of [weekly] Newsline and it left little recourse but for Newsline to make reference to it only.

So fairness and balance at Newsline has deteriorated to the level of making a judgment based on what the opposition newspaper has done? Nonsense. Also, maybe nobody told the editor that while a lawyer’s “defamatory” letter is protected by privilege, republishing the statements in the paper is not. Café Pacific notes that Barbara Dreaver has engaged one of New Zealand’s top media barristers, Simpson Grierson’s William Arkel, in her corner. Good luck, you media fellas in Apia, we hope your anti-gangsta vendetta doesn’t take you to the cleaners.

Not everybody in Samoa is deluded by the Samoan pro-tourism press smokescreen. Take this indignant blog posting as a footnote:

Barbara Dreaver [has] exposed a weakness in our culture … dissenting youths who are on fringe of society!!
The clampdown on the Barbara Dreaver [programme] is all about ensuring the reputation of Samoa to tourist is seen as gangsterless and ok under matai control. All for big dollars eh? How about the safety of the locals? None whatsoever is there any media concerns about our people's safety. When the Vaiala government paid pulenu’u (village mayor) and his gang attack innocent women children over disputed lands, the government did not give a sh%*t about the local women and children's welfare! Now everyone's jumping on the bandwagon of tourist safety as a justification for denying Dreavers article on the existence of gangs in Samoa! As a Samoan who had been abused and clamped down by Samoan gangsters led by Samoan public servant, the pulenu'u, I would say, Ms Dreaver exposed the truth about Samoa which some of us have suffered at the hands of government-endorsed gangster like the Vaiala pulenu'u who continues to harass and exert power over helpless women and the disabled ....
- Barbara Dreaver debater!

Picture of Barbara Dreaver by Pacific Media Centre's Alan Koon.

Pacific reporter fights off smear campaign
NZ drug trade fuels Samoa gun smuggling [video 4:51]
Drugs, guns and gangs in Samoa: Barbara Dreaver explains [video 2:50]
Barbara Dreaver on journalism and integrity

Gangs, guns, drugs and a Samoan media backlash

BARBARA DREAVER’S exclusive TVNZ report from Samoa this week on gunrunning and drug peddling featuring a group of kids (some masked) has struck a chord in the region. A bit too much in Samoa. One of the young bloods featured in the programme was forced to drop his bravado and apologise in tears. Savali ran a story questioning the integrity of the report. And now TVNZ has issued a statement defending the story as ripples flowed through the Samoan community both in Aotearoa and NZ. Editor Paul Patrick declared:

TVNZ stands by the investigative story it aired on Monday [April 6] night exposing gangs engaged in smuggling drugs and guns into Samoa from NZ and the USA. We believe the story was a very real, accurate and fair portrayal of the criminal activity happening in Samoa and will continue to follow this story as it unfolds. Protecting news sources is of the highest priority to TVNZ News and you cannot underestimate the seriousness with which we take this fundamental journalism ethic on a story such as this – therefore we will not comment on any aspect of the story or how we sourced it, including our news crew’s movements in Samoa.

Tupuola Terry Tavita, writing in Savali, described how since the screening of the One News item, an alleged gang member, Vaitagutu Lefano, interviewed by Dreaver, had claimed they were asked by the reporter to "play act American gangsters". He also claimed the alleged cannabis they had been smoking was instead "just rolled-up tobacco".

The whole episode was staged, claims Lefano. "She told us to act like American gangsters and we thought she was shooting a movie. We didn't know she was doing the news." Not so, says Barbara Dreaver in a telephone interview with Savali. "We took video footage the moment we stepped off the car and those boys were already heavily into it…we also asked them to cover up they faces but they didn’t want to."

On supposed rolled-up tobacco, Dreaver says, "well it didn’t smell like it." Dreaver describes the knife and axe-wielding youths she interviewed "as little guys and not the major players." "They were just guys who sold drugs." A teary-eyed Lefano, who appears in his teens, made a public apology on TV One last night "for the misery our stupidity had caused the country". "We're not gang members, just a bunch of harmless boys messing around.”

Police Commissioner Papalii Lorenese Neru told Tupuola that the youths' actions on television amounted to public intimidation and were being investigated. The saga reminds Cafe Pacific of an event in Fiji in 1998 when Monasavu landowners - unhappy about the lack of state royalties for the Wailoa dam in the Viti Levi highlands that supplies 80 percent of the country’s electricity - staged an “intimidating” protest. Daubed in warpaint and wielding traditional clubs, spears and machetes, their protest sparked a complaint to the Fiji Media Council against Fiji Television for screening the item. But clearly for the average viewer it was theatre and not at all threatening.

And, finally, Happy Easter!

NZ drug trade fuels Samoa gun smuggling
Guns, drugs and gangs in Samoa: Barbara Dreaver explains