'Voice of the voiceless' - Al Jazeera's response over Saudi-led blog gag pressure

The Doha headquarters of the global news network. Photo: Al Jazeera

An important media freedom statement: An open letter from Al Jazeera
Republished on Café Pacific from the Doha-based global news network

OVER two decades ago, Al Jazeera Arabic was launched with a simple mission: to provide reliable information to viewers across the Arab world. Ten years later, in 2006, Al Jazeera English began broadcasting with the same mission - to provide people around the world with accurate, balanced and impartial information.

When Al Jazeera Arabic went on air in 1996, it was unique in the Arab world. Most media in the region at the time were state-controlled and often unchallenged mouthpieces for the different rulers and governments in the region. Al Jazeera was different, a truly independent voice, with a mission to hear and report the human stories that were otherwise ignored; to cover events with balance and integrity; and to hold power to account.

Al Jazeera Arabic quickly gained a huge and loyal audience across the region. The information we provided became a lifeline to millions of people who wanted to know what was really going on around them.

New Dawn FM and the Bougainville mining lobby machine?

PACIFIC MEDIA WATCH’S Alistar Kata has just filed an interesting report about the virtual “shut out” of no-mining critics in Bougainville in the lead-up to the elections next month. The report was about a head-to-head interview with the Bougainville Freedom Movement’s long-time campaigner Vikki John and New Dawn FM broadcaster Aloysius Laukai, both past award winners for their contrasting roles.

John claimed the “ownership” of news websites was hampering opposition news, saying this was another form of “brainwashing” by the company that is angling for resumption of copper mining at Panguna, the mine which triggered the 10-year Bougainville civil war. However, Laukai was at great pains to reject any alleged links to the powerful Bougainville Copper Limited mining lobby.

Last month’s new mining law passed by the Autonomous Bougainville Government’s legislature last month has paved the way to make reopening of the mine possible.

“No, we have no links and that’s why we have put up heaps of stories and cover events such as the mining forums,” Laukai told Kata. “There must be some confusion with us and another Bougainville news website.”

He was probably referring to Bougainville24 news website, which is produced by Bougainville Copper Ltd. But that isn’t the end of the story.

According to the European Shareholders of BCL, they have been backing New Dawn FM and have promoted an appeal to channel funds to the community broadcaster, founded with UNESCO support in 2008.

A link to this was revealed in a posting on the Pacific Media Centre website today, which referred to ABG and Bougainville Copper Foundation funding for New Dawn. The European Shareholders webpage goes like this:

The European Shareholders of Bougainville Copper New Dawn appeal.

RADIO NEW DAWN NEEDS YOU!
Radio New Dawn on Bougainville has been founded a couple of years ago. It is the first free network made by Bougainvilleans for Bougainvilleans. At the present, the radio station is in threat of shutting down.

Small revenues from local businesses and the Autonomous Bougainville Government cannot guarantee its existence. Bankruptcy would be fatal.

Radio New Dawn is the only genuine voice of Bougainville compared to all other media who report from PNG’s capital Port Moresby – some 1000 kilometres away. 

Aloysius Laukai, manager and chief editor, [has] been honored for his work in the past. But honors alone cannot assure the broadcaster’s survival. The ESBC appreciate a lot [of] the crew’s information work. After years of uncertainty during the Bougainville crisis, Radio New Dawn created a new public awareness and self-confidence on the island.

Therefore, the European Shareholders of Bougainville Copper (ESBC) are proud of supporting this shining project. This is in the interest of locals and all those from abroad who benefit from Radio New Dawn’s internet blog that updates information on the positive development in Bougainville.  Financial funding will be highly welcome.

We strongly hope that our initiative will be successful and help to maintain Radio New Dawn’s services in future. Please find our account information here! You also can send funds directly to Radio New Dawn on Bougainville.

Late last year, on October 7, the BCL mining website announced that New Dawn FM had turned to modern mobile phone apps and social media to cover news in remote parts of Bougainville region.

“Station manager Aloysius Laukai now has 15 staff members working under him as the team seek to build awareness on the biggest issues affecting Bougainville,” reported the BCL website.

“Laukai and his reporters use WhatsApp and Viber, cross-platform mobile apps, to exchange information and file stories.”

It was also reported that a radio infrastructure upgrade was being funded to enable FM coverage across the whole region. Who was paying the bills? “Jointly funded by the Autonomous Bougainville Government and the Bougainville Copper Foundation," said the BCL website.

Bougainville's two-week regional elections next month begin on May 11.

• Listen to Alistar Kata’s Pacific Media Watch report here giving another side to the story.

• PNG Mine Watch

Why The Australian is un-Australian: all ego and little heart

The headline on The Australian media editor Sharri Markson's 'undercover' beat-up about journalism schools
that sparked off the latest attacks on journalism educators.

By Professor Mark Pearson

OPINION: FIRST they came for journalism educator Julie Posetti, for simply tweeting some critical comments made publicly by a former staffer of The Australian. [That time I did write a commentary in Crikey about why editors shouldn’t sue for defamation.]

Then they came for Matthew Ricketson, Greg Jericho, Margaret Simons, Wendy Bacon, Martin Hirst and Jenna Price and to my shame I said very little.

Well, this week they came for a good friend and colleague, Penny O’Donnell from the University of Sydney, and I refuse to remain silent. Enough is enough.

She is one of the most committed and respected journalism educators I know – in both research and teaching – and has shown the greatest courage in her personal life in recent years that has elevated my esteem for her even higher.

Sadly, the reputation of The Australian newspaper has followed the opposite trajectory. It is celebrating its 50th birthday this year, and my view is that the first 40 were far better than the last ten.

Crying wolf, crying terror and fanning the media flames of disquiet

Outraged family of innocent man splashed as a 'terrorist teenager' in Fairfax media threatens to sue.

The reckless and inflammatory reporting on terrorism and national security in Australia makes ABC columnist Jonathan Green wonder whether we'd be better off without a media apparatus that can sink so low.

OPINION: HAVE we reached a tipping point where, with its mix of anxious desperation and crazy-brave self-confidence, our mainstream corporate media does us more harm than good?

Everywhere it's under pressure from declining markets and battling business models, a situation that is as pressing for newspapers as it is becoming true for TV.

The response of news producers has been trapped somewhere between the sentimental and the self-serving. How will journalism survive, ask the journalists. Maybe we ought to wonder both whether it matters and whether something better might not evolve to replace it.

It might be that journalism is just a writing style.

I should declare here that I've spent my working life as a journalist, from 1979 to now. But now, reading the newspapers and watching the news, I can't help but wonder if this is a craft that is not only losing its centre of corporate gravity and support, but also some fundamental sense of its mission and responsibility.

Coups, conflicts and human rights - Pacific media challenges in the digital age

AT THE heart of a global crisis over news media credibility and trust has been Britain's so-called Hackgate scandal involving allegations of phone-hacking and corruption against the now defunct Rupert Murdoch tabloid newspaper News of the World.

Major inquiries on media ethics, professionalism and accountability have been examining the press in Australia, Britain and NZ over the past two years.

The Murdoch media empire has stretched into the South Pacific with the sale of one major title being forced by political pressure.

The role of news media in global South nations and the declining credibility of some sectors of the developed world's Fourth Estate also pose challenges for the future of democracy.

Truth, censorship, ethics and corporate integrity are increasingly critical issues in the digital age for a region faced with coups, conflicts and human rights violations, such as in West Papua.

The lies of Marc Edge, 'counterpropagandist'

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN once said that “half a truth is often a great lie”, but in the past few weeks the blog Fiji Media Wars has been treating readers to a steady smear campaign. Café Pacific publishes here a statement by journalist and media educator David Robie:

Canadian Marc Edge projects himself as a dispassionate scholar. In fact, he is a polemicist and “counterpropagandist” – as he admits proudly on his website – who has regularly used his position at a Pacific university over the past year and since to peddle self-serving disinformation. For those who wondered why I was departing from the usual editorial line of Café Pacific to make a rare personal public condemnation with my “Vendetta journalism” article last Wednesday, the answer is quite simple: To make the truth known.

"Counterpropagandist" - from Marc Edge's website, 3 February 2013.

Dr Marc Edge ... controversial
academic and blogger.
Photo: Wansolwara

When I heard Dr Marc Edge’s distortions on his Radio Australia interview late last month blaming Fiji’s military backed regime as the sole cause of his demise at the University of the South Pacific, I decided I could no longer remain silent. In my capacity as a regional journalism educator and journalist, I had the misfortune to cross paths with Marc Edge several times and over varied projects over several months at his university last year. I quickly learned he had his own personal agenda and little of it was to do with the truth or journalism education. In fact, I am now convinced that he never had the welfare of students or the USP journalism programme at heart. He merely wanted to use USP as a pawn in gathering fodder for his proposed “Fiji Media Wars” blog book to trash Fiji and portray himself as a media freedom “hero”. It backfired.

Coup 4.5: Fiji 'democracy defenders' peddle bomber bravado

Coup 4.5 weblog ... television decree regime's latest big stick. Image: CP

By Graham Davis

THERE SEEMS to be no depths to which the depraved denizens of Coup 4.5  - the anti-government website – won’t plunge in their frustration at failing to derail Fiji’s march towards a fairer democracy. These so-called “journalists” are regular purveyors of racism and hate dressed up as respectable analysis but they’ve reached a new low with a link on how to make bombs.

Yes, they’ve carried a comment by someone calling himself/herself Pyro Farf who says:  

“Here’s what I’m reading:
 From a former top explosives expert with the Israeli Army comes a manual that presents ten simple yet powerful formulas for explosives and incendiaries that give the basis for making bombs, booby traps and mines. Learn to obtain or make the needed chemicals, or get substitutes.”

We’re not going to provide the link but it’s all there on Coup 4.5 [link provided reluctantly by CP] – the site that poses as the defender of democracy while purveying racism and, in a fresh outrage, promoting violence with a clear inference that people in Fiji try to dislodge the regime with home-made bombs.

They’ve also launched crude attacks on Professor Yash Ghai, head of Fiji’s Constitutional Commission, with articles casting him as a regime supporter that are a clear attempt to derail the constitutional process. The 4.5 gatekeepers have even allowed a comment posting calling on Professor Ghai to be charged with sedition. Quite on what grounds isn’t made clear but rationality isn’t the website’s strongest point.

The comment comes from a certain Mark Manning, a well known Sydney-based agitator who describes himself as a clinical hypnotherapist. As one correspondent has already quipped on 4.5, he’s clearly in the business of hypnotising himself with the delusion that the good Professor can be charged with anything at all.

Mark Manning is a regular feature at anti-regime rallies organised by the so called Fiji Democracy and Freedom Movement, that rabble of ethno-nationalists, SDL supporters and hangers on who have trouble filling a church hall yet continually cast themselves as credible players in Fiji. He’s also a regular contributor to the Matavuvale website, where these sad characters gather to trade their fantasies and swap their most incisive bon mots. Among Manning’s choicest is to describe Grubsheet in lurid terms as someone who wipes the dictator’s nethers. The imagery is as crude as the language but this is evidently the best this hypnotherapist can conjure up.

Another regular contributor to both Coup 4.5 and Matavuvale is the charmless Ilisoni (Wilson)Tamanikaira, a man now banned from these columns for his overt racism and for urging Fijians (the real ones, of course) to beat Grubsheet to a pulp on sight. He and Mark Manning deserve each other, one a Fijian who appropriately resides in the red neck Australian city of Toowoomba (Pauline Hanson country), the other an Australian who evidently wishes he was Fijian but only if the country is run by people who wouldn’t allow him to be Fijian at all. Strangely, Manning is wedded to the SDL, surely an alliance of the most bizarre kind.

And so we have this gaggle of the politically dispossessed, racial supremacists (or both) plus their assorted camp followers, all quaintly banging their pots and pans offshore in support of a bastardised democracy like a bunch of Argentine washerwomen locked out of a bank. Their desperation is evidently reaching fever pitch as the constitutional process kicks into gear and their dreams of a comeback move further and further out of reach. So perhaps it’s to be expected that their agitation is also reaching fever pitch, whatever rationality they once had dissolving into mass hysteria and a steady stream of idle threats.

Few rational people care anymore about their loathsome politics and racism, not to mention the appalling hypocrisy of one-time coup makers such as Simione Kaitani screaming blue murder about democracy from their cosy perches in Australia.

But when the “journalists” at Coup 4.5 start issuing instructions about how to make home-made bombs -presumably to be detonated in the country they claim to love – it’s a bridge too far and let’s call it what it really is: criminal and sick.

Independent Fiji-born journalist Graham Davis publishes the blog Grubsheet.

• Coup 4.5
• Coup 4.5 - the politics of hate

NZ media 'blind spot' over West Papuan repression

Papuan demonstrators erupt in a short-lived celebration as they raise the banned Morning Star flag on a bamboo pole in Timika in Indonesian-ruled Papua province. Indonesian police and troops opened fire to break up the protest. Photo: Tjahjono Eranius / Photoblog

From Pacific Media Watch: 7761

A media academic specialising in Asia-Pacific affairs condemned New Zealand news coverage on West Papua and other Melanesian issues at a journalism education conference in Australia this week.

Professor David Robie, director of AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre presented a paper called "Creative Commons and a Pacific media 'hub’" in which he offered four recent case studies, including a scathing criticism of NZ media coverage about the Freeport mine strike and brutal crushing of a peaceful Papuan People’s Congress by Indonesian security forces with the loss of up to six lives in October.

“The barriers to free reporting are perhaps a contributing factor to the almost negligible reporting in New Zealand news media of West Papuan issues, apart from occasional snippets about the Freeport mine,” he said at the annual Journalism Education Association of Australia (JEAA) conference in Adelaide.

“A major exception has been Radio New Zealand International, which with very limited resources compared with its Radio Australia cousins, doggedly provides coverage on the legacy of armed struggle in West Papua and Bougainville.

“A major problem is that for the international community the issue of West Papua is ‘settled’ and it is accepted as being an internal problem for the Indonesian authorities rather than an issue of ‘decolonisation’.

Although the so-called 1969 Act of Free Choice had been a “stage-managed sham” by Indonesia after it had invaded the former Netherlands colony bordering Papua New Guinea and was widely condemned as the “Act of No Choice”, most media in Australia, NZ and the Pacific currently virtually ignored the issue, he said.

It was left to international news media agencies to report on developments in West Papua – often from at a distance and their reports failed to gain much traction in the media of the region.

'Shameful' reporting
“It is shameful that the NZ and regional news media fail to cover the ongoing human rights atrocities and disturbances with the seriousness they deserve," he said

“The ongoing West Papua crisis is a greater threat to Pacific security than the Fiji issue.”

In a content analysis of a two-week period between the start of the military crackdown on October 19 until November 2, 2011, it was found that Pacific Scoop published 66 percent of the total of 99 news stories carried by main NZ news media websites about the West Papua crisis.

Pacific Journalism Review published a media freedom report by Dr Robie and Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Alex Perrottet in the October edition which strongly covered West Papuan media issues.

• Indonesians open fire as Papuans raise outlawed flag
• Bloody 'independence' anniversary a time of reckoning for West Papua

A Samoan side to Campbell Live - Tuilaepa's 'Kiwi nemesis'

HOW IRONICAL: While a four-day International Federation of Journalists-organised training workshop for media freedom monitors was under way in Apia last week, an intrepid “investigative” journalist from New Zealand was feuding with the Samoan prime minister.

TV3’s John Campbell was staking out a local restaurant in an ill-fated attempt to corner the prime minister for a response to his controversial “missing aid millions"story on Campbell Live on September 29. When his lame door-stopping attempt failed – “we don’t do door-stopping in Samoa,” insisted one senior local journalist at the IFJ Pacific workshop – Campbell didn’t hesitate in branding Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi a “coward” for canning a promised interview at the last moment. The New Zealand Herald followed up with the same insult. (Actually, this isn’t the way Tuilaepa sees it. According to local media reports, the PM’s version of events is that the interview was lined up for November 4 and Tuilaepa wants to take Campbell and his crew on a tour of the inland aid areas where considerable progress has been made. He also wants Samoan TV journalists in on the act.)

Campbell told the country’s only daily newspaper, the feisty opposition publication Samoa Observer:

We had a formal agreement [with the PM, reportedly arranged through an Auckland legal go-between]. This is a man who has slagged us off for the past month. He slagged us off on Samoan TV, on TVNZ and on Australian radio – and Australia hasn’t even seen the story. When it comes to the crunch, he is too much of a coward to do an interview – he pulled out at the last moment.

In an Observer editorial, editor-in-chief Savea Sano Malifa branded Campbell “Tuilaepa’s Kiwi nemesis”, explaining the TV journalist’s assignment in Samoa. He described the “real mission” as one to find out about how the millions of dollars donated in aid had helped improve the lives of tsunami victims since Campbell Live had reported on the disaster on 29 September 2009. Some 143 people died in the tsunami and 4000 were left homeless.

What [Campbell Live] saw shocked and distressed. Aleipata was torn apart, people had been killed, others were swept away by the wave and were never found, stories of survival were sad and heart-rending.

Back home when they returned, they told their story on the screen across New Zealand and people went silent.

Soon afterwards, New Zealanders started giving. Moved by Campbell Live's story they donated generously towards helping Aleipata's tsunami victims.

However, when John Campbell visited on the tsunami's first anniversary he was disappointed. Aleipata's broken homes along the coastal villages were still there. Some homes had neither running water nor electricity. Village after village, sadness and depression reigned.

And so this time, the images and story Campbell Live put on the screen across New Zealand were hardly flattering. Instead, they might have inspired disappointment and even revulsion.

He even suggested that "up to $US45 million in aid had been misappropriated, while many tsunami victims are left without water or electricity".

However, this was a very different story from Pacific Scoop's Alex Perrottet who recently did a compelling series on aid and development in Samoa. Tuilaepa retaliated by branding the Campbell Live report as "stupid and uninformed" in a Radio Australia Pacific Beat item. He told interviewer Geraldine Coutts the claims were "all ridiculous and based on the report by this amateur reporter, Mr Campbell, who came here and spent all his time talking to the Observer newspaper - and then, in his own words, spent much time on the coast. People have moved inland, and therefore he could not have seen what has taken place." Talamua also carried a story describing the Campbell report as "sensational" based on very few interviews and information.

For many of the Pacific journalists who watched and discussed the Campbell Live report during an ethics and democracy workshop at the conference, the item was stunning for its crassness, cultural arrogance and ignorance and lack of evidence underpinning the sweeping allegations. No doubt there is a story there, but Campbell Live hasn’t yet exposed it.

A follow-up story inevitably featured the door-stopping incident on Campbell Live last night. And again, the question was posed – “Where has the tsunami relief money gone?” – and yet again failed to offer any real answers. Once again, not much balance and fairness in sight. The story said:

In New Zealand, the government would be compelled to answer it – and would do the same as a matter of course.

But the Samoan government was outraged by it and embarked on a sustained campaign against Campbell Live’s story – including making a formal Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) complaint.”

Yes, there are new roads and electricity is back in the region. The Samoan government says it has spent 68.74 million tala so far, but many tsunami victims feel deserted by their government and wonder why so little of the money has made its way back to them.

Documents obtained by Campbell Live suggest many millions more dollars have been received than have been spent around the coastline.

Nevertheless Café Pacific reckons the “investigation’ will need a lot more hard facts and evidence to get anywhere.

Last word - from a blogger who, while acknowledging the money trail is worth following, dismissed the original report as a “shocking abuse of his viewers”.

Describing Campbell’s visit to a typical fale, offered by the journalist as "evidence" of the misuse of aid – including an extraordinary “houses without walls” comment, the blogger, Pervach, wrote the situation was portrayed out of context:

[Campbell] knows that most of his viewers in their cosy western houses in New Zealand will compare this shack to what is normal in New Zealand. Now, I have been to Samoa – I have seen normal Samoan villages, where people live in fales.

There are no toilets, bathrooms, kitchens, windows made of glass [and] water pipes. We are talking about Samoa here – a Third World country. It is normal in Samoa to have none of these things.

In Samoa, if you have these things, you are rich.

• Campbell video link (Nov 1) - Where has the tsunami money gone?
• Campbell video link (Sept 27) - Samoan tsunami: Has aid been used effectively?
• Samoan PM denies misuse of tsunami rebuilding funds
• Wave of controversy over PM tsunami interview
  

Ruthlessly chilling decree no way to improve Fiji media

SO Jim Anthony has had the last laugh. And at least two critical components from his discredited 2007 "Freedom and independence of the media in Fiji" report have found their way into the draft Media Industry Development Decree 2010. No surprise, of course. All the signs have been there for the past couple of years. It was a sure bet that the regime would adopt a Singapore-inspired Media Development Authority and a Media Tribunal with draconian powers (see p. 6 of Anthony's executive summary). But at least his crazy idea of a 7 percent development tax was ditched.

The tragedy of the Anthony report and the public slanging match with the media that ensued is that neither should have never taken place. Had the Fiji news media got their act together and improved things on their own accord, rather that persevering with the "toothless tiger" Fiji Media Council with all its overdue faults, this draconian draft might have been headed off. The independent Media Council review in February 2009 was a job well done - but it was more than three years too late to have any impact.

Now we have a ruthlessly chilling climate of self-censorship being imposed in post-coup Fiji. A year of censorship since the 1997 constitution was abrogated on April 10 is taking its toll. Soon we will have a generation of journalists (average age in Fiji is less than 25)that will barely know what it was like to work in a genuinely free press.

The regime is systematically destroying what had been traditionally one of the strongest media industries in the Pacific.

Media improvements were needed, true. Especially over "fairness and balance". But government authorities have ignored the commonsense independent Media Council review recommendations last year and instead been influenced too heavily by the harsh proposals of the discredited 2007 Anthony report.

Ironically, one "success" of the council is to have its code of ethics adopted in the decree - "lifted word for word", as Fiji Broadcasting Corporation's news director Stanley Simpson points out. Summing up today's media "consultation", he said:

Among the major sticking points during today's discussions was the make up and independence of the Media Development Authority, the imposition of fines for breaching certain provisions under the decree, and the ability of the media to appeal or seek redress from the courts if the Media Tribunal ruled and imposed fines against them.

Limits on foreign ownership of media organisations in Fiji also featured, with the proposed decree set to take out Australia’s News Ltd’s ownership of the Fiji Times.

Actually, the foreign ownership limitation would gain widespread sympathy. Many believe that Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd and the Fiji Times have not been "in tune" with Fiji for many years. Nevertheless, a 10 percent limit is to punitive. Perhaps 49 percent and a reasonable adjustment window to divest shares would have been more realistic - and fairer.

Café Pacific's colleagues at the media consultation provided this feedback:

S4(1): The Authority shall consist of a director appointed by the Minister.

Response: This is putting too much power in the hands of the minister. It could open the door to political appointments, and jeopardise the independence of the authority. The person appointed as director should be one who enjoys the confidence of all the stakeholders, not just that of the minister or the government of the day. There needs be more consultation; it's too risky to leave such a crucial appointment in the hands of one person or one party.

4(3): Director must be remunerated in a manner and at rates subject to terms and conditions determined by the Minister.

The civil service and statutory bodies have clear and transparent salary structures based on academic qualifications and experience. These guidelines should be used to determine the salary of the director, which should be made public. This will instill confidence in the process and the
authority, and it will protect the integrity of the minister also.

5(1) & (2): The authority appoints its own officers and servants and will determine its own salaries and conditions with the Minister as the approving authority.
Appointments and salaries and conditions should be determined independently and in accordance with clearly stipulated procedures to avoid compromising the process, and to instill confidence in the authority.

Terms of office (p. 7)
6(2): The Minister may remove the Director of the Authority at any time from office if the Minister considers it appropriate in the public interest.

The sole authority to remove the Director (coupled with the sole authority to appoint and remunerate) gives the Minister almost sweeping powers over this body which is cause for unease.

Part 4: Content regulation (p. 12)
Offences relating to content regulation

23. The fines and jail terms stipulated (F$100,000 to $500,000; or imprisonment for five years or both) for breaches of content regulation are too draconian. It will have a chilling effect and stop the media from reporting issues of national interest. It is a disincentive for new entrepreneurs wanting to enter the sector. It will also scare away people who may want to join the profession.

Part 5: Enforcement of media standards (p. 12)
25. Power to require documents for information

This is the authority duplicating what the courts are already empowered to carry out. This is outdated, and contrary to whistleblower protection legislation being mooted nowadays as a safeguard against corruption. This is not something that will encourage investigative reporting, which is something this government claims it is keen to promote.

26. Power to enter premises and search, seize under warrant

This is the authority duplicating police work.

27. Offences relating to enforcement (p. 15)
Any person who fails to disclose documents faces maximum fines of $100,000 and jail terms of up to five years, which are quite harsh. This will put an end not only to the whistleblowing culture, but media disclosure of confidential documents in the public interest.

63. Power of the Tribunal on hearing of complaint (p. 28)

The tribunal can order the media organisation or any employee to pay monetary compensation to aggrieved complainants. We already have defamation and other laws for compensatory damages. Why duplicate this function and waste resources? This is something best left to the courts.

Summing up: The decree gives too many sweeping powers to the minister which can be dangerous. There is duplication of the work that courts have been set up to do, which is an unnecessary waste of resources.

The fines and jail terms stipulated are extremely harsh. The media has been denied the freedom it needs to inform the public and to act in its interest.

Pictured: Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and ministry officials at the media consultation. Photo: FBC

• Full text of draft Fiji Media Industry Development Decree 2010
• Coverage of the issue on Pacific Scoop
• How the regime's censorship contradicts the People's Charter
• Draft Fiji media decree draconian and punitive
  

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
  

Human rights or corruption? Trotting out the real Fiji issues

ALL THE tired old clichés came out in droves in last week’s United Nations monologue on the Fiji regime’s tatty human rights record. Headlines fell over themselves echoing the same refrain:

Fiji human rights to undergo scrutiny
Fiji human rights to face UN scrutiny
Fiji Human rights defence challenged in Geneva … etc … etc …

Yet most of the litany of abuses rattled off by various governments and NGOs before the UN Human Rights Council periodic review were actually perpetrated in the months after Bainimarama’s original coup and yet they were often trotted out as if they were fresh. The breathless media blogs and journalists who continually recycle the same old sins rarely provide background or context – and even rarer is a mention of the systematic human rights and race-based violations by the ousted “democratic” regime of Laisenia Qarase.

Now, according to Fiji’s public broadcaster, the regime is wading through 116 recommendations to see how it can make things better. (Aligned against Australia, NZ, UK and the US - the Anglo-Saxon club - were countries such as China, Mexico, Philippines and Russia, which were prepared to give Fiji a fair go).

Following the saturation coverage of alleged Fiji human rights abuses in media in Downunder media, Café Pacific reckons journalists ought to see the film Balibo to get a sense of real human rights violations in this part of the world – in East Timor, where the Australian and New Zealand governments meekly brushed these Indonesian crimes on their doorstep under the carpet. Much easier to bully Fiji than Indonesia.

According to many seasoned local journalists, much of the Australian and NZ press simply fail to acknowledge the complexity of Fiji’s socio-political context. And nothing is said positively about the regime perhaps having actually achieved something in reducing race-based human rights violations. Says one former leading Fiji editor in an email to Café Pacific:

Fiji is not a homogeneous country. It is a unique country where we have two major races who each comprise about roughly half of the total population. The mix of cultures and religion is also unique.

The two major political parties are aligned along racial lines – that is their power base. They use the political arena to gain mileage and use the media to split the community.

We have seen plenty of the above.

When reporting about Fiji, the media needs a deeper understanding about racial issues in order to avoid being manipulated by politicians. So the media has to be careful how it goes about reporting race and politics.

People in Western countries view Fiji through Western eyes. But Fijian society and the situation here is very different.

Having said that, censorship is taken advantage of by the government when it allows nothing negative to be reported. This is not doing society any favour either.

It just shows what a powerful tool the media is, and how successive governments in Fiji have tried to bring it under their control.

His comments were borne out by Fiji's Ambassador to the European Union, Peceli Vocea, who blamed Fiji's ills on two decades of "mismanagement, corruption and nepotism" (ie. under "democratic" leadership).

Prominent Fiji issues blogger Croz Walsh, who unlike the tabloid “antis”, tries to bring some rigour to his website with research and analysis, deplored the gullible acceptance by news media of the spate of uncritical, onesided reports on human rights. He says:

Fiji really has been in the news for the last few days, and not one word in its favour. By now the world must think its human rights record is on a par with Burma. All other Fiji news, little that it ever was, has been pushed aside (except for ANU's Jon Fraenkel speaking to Radio NZ International on Voreqe Bainimarama's "resignation" and Fiji's Met Service work for the Cooks) by the avalanche of "human rights" news.

Apparently nothing positive is happening in Fiji, and there's never a word about the massive abuse of power -- and hence abuse of human rights -- by the deposed "democratically elected" government. I wonder how honest journalists can continue to talk of an independent media when their colleagues continue to report like this? Or how Fiji, even with the most worthy deeds and the most efficient PR, can have one hope in hell of countering what can only be called propaganda?

My paltry efforts in my blog to provide background, information, analysis and helpful comments is outnumbered many thousands to one, and the occasional radio interview seems like a sop to supposed balance.

The real Fiji issue here is not human rights (though some, affecting very few people, have been abused). The real issue is the abuse of "media rights" that have been allowed, if not encouraged, to so distort the situation in Fiji, past and present.

• Draft report of the UN human rights working group on Fiji

PNG pipeline clash story - tribal feud or Exxon whitewash?

A READER has picked up on the remarkably contradictory reports by local Papua New Guinean news media linking a bloody feud between Southern Highlands tribes with tension over profit-sharing about the $15 billion gasfield and international media coverage - reported far from the conflict area, and downsizing the development conflict issue. He noted the contrast between one story from the front page of the Post-Courier, blaming the royalties tensions over the liquefied natural gasfield and pipeline, and a Radio Australia item, saying it was "lonstanding tribal dispute". (This RA report was also filed by a PNG journalist while other news agencies later carried even stronger ExxonMobil denials of profit-sharing problems):

...two stories on the same topic. And they remain two very different stories.

The lack of coverage in the next few days didn't make the situation any clearer. Café Pacific believes that the influence of the Exxon publicity machine had a lot to do with the international wire service "playdown" stories, conveniently cashing in on the hasty police statements. Take your pick:

Version # 1: Post-Courier, 25 January 2010

11 KILLED IN SHOOTING RELATED TO PNG GAS PROJECT
Raid said to be caused by tension from benefits agreement

By Mohammad Bashir

Eleven people were gunned down in an early morning raid on Pawale village in the PDL4 area of the PNG LNG project in Southern Highlands.

As a result, the government and developers have been given 48 hours to step in and restore order.

In a gang style attack, four groups of young men from the neighbouring Imawe Bogasi clan armed with high powered guns reportedly staged the raid, killing 11 young men and injuring many villagers.

Hundreds of women and children who fled are unaccounted for after 270 houses and other properties were destroyed.

Southern Highlands provincial police commander, Superintendent Jimmy Onopia last night confirmed the fighting but he could not provide details of the deaths and destruction to properties.

Pawale village in Simberigi, Erave district in the Southern Highlands Province was a home to the Toroko, Haukerake and Ase Tipupurupeke clans.

The raid was believed to be in retaliation for the killing of an Imawe Bogasi clansman before the December Licensed Based Benefit Sharing Agreement (LBBSA) forum.

Spokesman for the Tipurupeke clan, Steven Paglipari, confirmed the killings yesterday, saying the situation on the ground was tense.

During the LBBSA, Pawale villagers of PDL4, who were the principal landowners, did not take part in the forum because of threats and intimidation.

Pawale council president Max Apua said the Bogasis refused K5000 and 14 pigs given two weeks ago as "bel kol" at a mediation ceremony chaired by Erave's first judge Justice Nemo Yalo.

Justice Yalo appealed to the warring clans to put their differences aside.

Moloko Tiburua Peke, ILG chairman Apiko Pelipe and Mr Apua called on the government and the developers to step in immediately and address the situation.

Speaking on behalf of the six clans of Pawale, Mr Apua said they would not hesitate to take the law into their own hands if the Government and the oil and LNG developers failed.

An updated version of the above story was carried by Pacific Scoop.

Version #2: Radio Australia, 25 January 2010

TRIBAL DISPUTE CLAIMS 11 LIVES IN PNG HIGHLANDS

Eleven people have been reportedly gunned-down in the Papua New Guinea highlands over a longstanding tribal dispute.

Police in the Southern Highlands say they lack the resources and manpower to go and stop it, or prevent more casualties.

The province houses gas fields that will form PNG's Liquefied Natural Gas project, and the project's lead developer, Exxon Mobil says they are monitoring the situation very closely.

But PNG's Southern Highlands Police Commander, Jimmy Onopia, says the fight is between two tribal groups in the Erave district over the death of a villager from one of the waring tribes.

Presenter: Firmin Nanol
Speaker: Jimmy Onopia, PNG's Southern Highlands Police Commander

Audio: www.abc.net.au/ra/pacbeat/stories/m1840092.asx

Some other items:

Deadly PNG clash not linked to LNG project: police (AFP)
Exxon Says PNG violence tribal, not related to its LNG venture (Bloomberg)
ExxonMobil denies links to PNG deaths (Sydney Morning Herald)
ExxonMobil says clash in PNG had no link to LNG project (Radio NZ International)
PNG LNG 'not linked to clash' (Upstream Online)

Meanwhile, the mystery woman who posed as a human rights lawyer in the daring "great escape" when 12 hardened criminals broke out of Bomana prison earlier this month, has been described by police as "a beauty" (identikit picture). And warders were so gob-smacked that they were "distracted" from their usual jail screening protocols.

• PNG jailbreak media fallout

Post-Courier's Filipino 'aliens' story condemned as fabrication

By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ in Port Moresby

FILIPINOS in the capital of Port Moresby and across Papua New Guinea woke up on Tuesday, November 10, to find themselves in the midst of 16,000 "illegal Pinoys".

Well, that is, if you are to believe what the Post-Courier, a second-rate Australian-owned daily newspaper, headlined on that day on the front page: "16,000 aliens", with the subhead, "More than 80 per cent of Filipinos are living illegally in PNG".

And the alleged source of the figures, according to the Post-Courier?

Well, no less than the Philippine Ambassador to PNG, Madam Shirley Ho-Vicario, who has been quoted in the report.

Madam Ho-Vicario, the daily reported, testified last Friday, November 6, at the Parliamentary Bipartisan committee probing the anti-Asian riots that occurred last May, where she purportedly revealed the existence of 19,000 Filipinos in PNG, of which 16,000 are illegal.

The committee wanted to know the reasons that triggered the marginalised Papua New Guinean to go into rioting and to loot variety shops and groceries owned and operated by Chinese in the Highlands and in Port Moresby.

The locals hate illegal aliens, particularly Asians whose numbers in PNG are growing, because they feel that these undocumented expatriates are robbing them of jobs and livelihood reserved for them under the law.

Flurry of emails
Immediately, a flurry of emails crisscrossed the PNG cyberspace, originating from Pinoy expatriates with access to the internet who expressed disbelief that there are 19,000 Filipinos in PNG, of which 16,000 are illegal.

A number have even rebuked the ambassador, calling her "traitor" and "stupid", for making public such highly-sensitive and derogatory information.

One hyper-sensitive Pinoy expat had called the Philippine Embassy with a threat to burn it down "for making the Filipinos look really, really bad in the eyes of the international community".

It couldn't be helped. Most of Pinoys in PNG are employed with valid documents as professionals - accountants, pharmacists, engineers, teachers, IT experts, foresters, miners, managers, administrative officers and others.

And now this damaging news report.

Already, Joey Sena, president of the Filipino Association of PNG (FAPNG), has expressed concern over the safety of his compatriots around the country.

He was quite aware that the recent racist attacks on Asians, particularly the illegal Chinese, and the alleged illegal businesses they operate, could now be directed to PNG Pinoys.

Community warned
But then, he tried to tell the community to remain calm and urged the members to be vigilant of their own personal safety.

That morning when the story broke, Madam Ho-Vicario was already nursing a blood-pressure gone berserk, as she read the Post-Courier, horrified that the newspaper had put words into her mouth.

"How did [the Post-Courier] come up with these figures ?" she asked, as she read and reread the report, while noting that finally, the newspaper got her name right!

"This is pure fabrication!" she said.

Att noon, immediately after arriving at work, I went straight to our library to have a look at the day's editions of PNG's two daily newspapers - The National, the country's leading daily where I work, and the Post-Courier.

Our rival paper's front-page headline "16,000 aliens" quickly grabbed my eyes; and reading through the story, I couldn't believe what I was reading: That our ambassador had spilled the beans before a Parliamentary Bi-partisan committee hearing!

Immediately, however, I doubted the reliability and credibility of the story. You know why?

The night before, at about 7.25pm, I received an email from a long-time colleague working at Post-Courier as a subeditor, asking for the name of the Philippine Ambassador to PNG, and closing his message with: "It's just urgent ." In the newspaper work, it's deadline time at these
hours.

Unethical move
"I saw no harm in giving him our ambassador's name, although I was aware that it's quite unethical for a newspaper to ask for some info from a rival newspaper like The National.

Looking at the news story again, it dawned on me one thing: The reporter who had filed the story on the "16,000 aliens" never saw the ambassador at the alleged committee hearing because such hearing where she had purportedly testified on illegal Pinoys never took place.

First of all, how come he failed to know the ambassador's name?

I assumed that when he filed the story on Monday night, he left the name of the Philippine ambassador to PNG blank. So, when the subeditor, who is my colleague, edited the story, he found the ambassador's name missing in the copy, prompting him to get it from his own source: Me.

When I saw her at the embassy that afternoon, "Amba", as we refer to her during informal chats, was fuming, as she berated the Post-Courier reporter who filed the story and the daily paper - Post-Courier - that allowed a rubbish report to go to print.

"Ka Freddie, I need to counter this report as soon as possible." Amba said immediately after we shook hands. "The (Filipino) community has been put at risk because of these anti-Asian sentiments and I, personally, have been maligned by the report."

So what's the real story?

"I'm denying the report. It's all fabricated. It has no factual basis, it's unfounded and far from the truth.

'Print the truth'
"I demand that the Post-Courier retract the story and print the truth."

"There could never be 19,000 Filipinos living and working in this country," Amba said.

"I never appeared on the said committee hearing on that day to give evidence on this matter.

"I was never interviewed on that matter or present at the Bipartisan Parliamentary Inquiry (last Friday).

"I never knew who MP (Philip) Kilala is, how he looks . I just don't know him," Amba said, referring to the source which provided Post-Courier the fabricated figures of "19,000 Filipinos in PNG, of which 16,000 are illegal".

So, what's the real score on PNG Filipinos? I asked her.

According to official figures submitted by the Philippine Embassy in Port Moresby to the Philippine Congress as required of embassies worldwide, there are only 10,120 expatriates in the country as of June 2009.

About 670 of them are permanent residents, 6600 are temporary migrants (work permit holders), and 2850 which are considered "undocumented or irregular" (these are the holders of business visas and tourist visas).

Since I was the one to file the report on Amba's denial of the Post-Courier report, my boss editor reminded me to get the side of Post-Courier. So, I called the editor-in-chief, Blaise Nangoi, on his cell phone.

Getting both sides
Well, it is SOP in this job - getting both sides of the story. But it is something not practised in by the Post-Courier.

"We stand by our story," he told me over the phone.

The editor said their report was based on information their reporter obtained from a source that was at the parliamentary committee hearing when Amba purportedly gave evidence last Friday.

Categorically denying this, the ambassador told me that afternoon that "I was never at the Parliament last Friday".

The denial story that I filed came out the next day, Wednesday, and was headlined: "Philippine Embassy denies 'aliens' report".

On the same day, the chairman of the Parliamentary Bipartisan Committee on Asian-Owned and Operated Businesses in PNG, Jamie Maxton-Graham, Member of Parliament, sent a letter to Amba, stating:

The front page report stated in part that you appeared in person before my inquiry on Friday, November 6, during which you gave evidence that 16,000 out of 19,000 Filipino residents in this country are doing so illegally.

I wish to state categorically THAT YOU NEVER APPEARED [caps mine] before my Inquiry, either in person or through a representative on the date as stated by Post-Courier.

Neither have we received any written submission from your Embassy. The newspaper report is quite erroneous in that respect.

That night when I phoned the Post-Courier's editor-in-chief to get the side of his paper, he told me: "We will not make any further report on this matter. We stand by our report ."

Good journalism?
Talk about fairness in reporting, of good journalism.

However, in today's edition of the Post-Courier, it published the ambassador's denial of having appeared at the committee hearing, obviously in a desperate effort to wiggle out of the mess.

It finally admitted that it made an error in reporting that she appeared before the committee on Friday, November 6. "She did not attend and make a submission," the Post-Courier said.

However, while it earlier reported that Madam Ho-Vicario actually appeared at the bipartisan committee hearing last Friday where she purportedly disclosed the number of Filipinos in PNG and how many of them are illegal, the Post-Courier has made a turn-about and is now saying in today's report that MP Kikala stated on a bipartisan committee hearing last Monday that the Ambassador "informed" him of the 16,000 illegal Filipinos in the country.

He, however, was unable to tell the Post-Courier on what occasion did the ambassador divulge to him the derogatory information. Was it during a formal parliamentary bipartisan hearing? Was it during lunch or dinner? Was it during a drinking spree?

Or was he just fishing for some "blockbuster" story to get some attention and pluck himself out of obscurity?

Funny, while Amba has categorically said she "never knew MP Kikala or had met him", the (dis)honorable MP is claiming to have obtained the information directly from her.

But whatever this occasion was, it never happened. Madam Ho-Vicario was very clear in saying that "I never knew who MP (Philip) Kikala is, how he looks. I just don't know him".

Risk for Pinoys
So, it's very clear that the paper has conflicted itself while making the report in its own confusion to steer away from the heat.

Well, it is very clear now that the Philippine Embassy could not expect anything fairer from the offending daily, even a follow-up story rectifying the salient points of the report - the alleged 16,000 illegal Filipinos - and reporting the actual number of Filipino expatriates, or getting the ambassador's side of the issue.

To seek redress, the embassy is now consulting with the legal department of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in Manila for advice. It is also contemplating bringing the issue to the PNG Media Council.

True, Amba is bent on suing the newspaper.

Meantime, the Pinoys here are jittery as anti-Asian sentiments rage across PNG.

Thanks Post-Courier for making this hatred a reality now for us Filipinos!

Pictured: The "aliens" front page in the Post-Courier on November 10; Freddie Hernandez.

Thanks to Freddie Hernandez, this article is republished from his Letters from Port Moresby blog. He is a senior journalist on The National.

• Pacific Scoop followup on this story
• Philippines envoy blames claim of 16,000 illegal Filipinos on 'poor journalism' [Audio]