Draft Fiji media decree in profile on 95bFM

LINK to Pacific Scoop to hear Café Pacific's David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre, talking about the controversial Media Industry Development Decree being ushered in by the military-backed regime. 95bFM’s Will Pollard interviews Dr Robie on the implications for the future in Fiji - and also around the Pacific region.

Coup 4.5 reports on what it says are casualties of the decree climate:

Two senior journalists at Fiji TV have been moved to lesser roles under claims they were biased against the Frank Bainimarama government.

It is believed Merana Kitione and Anish Chand were sidelined because of their links to the National Federation Party. Kitione, Fiji TV's manager news current affairs and sport, is married to former Fiji Times journalist and administrative officer for the National Federation Party, Kamal Iyer.

She is now acting training and development manager. Another senior journalist, and close colleague, has been moved with her - desk editor and team leader news, Anish Chand, who is now in production.

Chand has friends in the National Federation Party. Kitione's old job has been filled by Tukaha Mua, who used to manage the programmes and distribution section, while Chand's position has been filled by Emily Moli.

The Australian's Asia-Pacific editor Rowan Callick has filed a comprehensive article about the decree and the implications for the The Fiji Times, a subsidiary of the News Ltd media stable.

• David Robie on 95bFM
• Barbara Dreaver's interview with David Robie - TVNZ video
  

'Camouflaged censorship' in Fiji and PINA's silence

THE SILENCE is deafening from the Suva-based Pacific Islands News Association - once the undisputed champion of media freedom in the region. Not a beep over the implications of the draconian Media Industry Development Decree in Fiji. Behind the scenes, there are many disgruntled Pacific journalists who are bitterly disappointed at the donor-funded body's failure to show leadership. For many, the refusal of the PINA to relocate from Suva to another Pacific capital has seriously compromised the regional organisation.

While Global Voices Online has compiled another good overview of cyberspace responses and the Pacific Media Centre condemned the 'draconian and punitive' draft decree, media report that PINA is still adopting a wait-and-see approach. The decree will impose tight restrictions on foreign media ownership which will hit the Rupert Murdoch News Ltd-owned Fiji Times hard - and perhaps even lead to the demise of the country's oldest and most influential newspaper. But it will also impact on the Fiji Sun (expatriate directors) and the Daily Post (majority Australian shareholding). Ten percent foreign ownership of "beneficial" shares is the limit.

But it is also not clear what will happen to the PINA whose Suva-based news service Pacnews is not Fiji-owned. Suva-based manager Matai Akauola, who recently admitted being hampered by censorship, says it is too early to adopt a strong position. He told Radio New Zealand International:

PINA would like to try to meet with its members, like Fiji TV, Fiji Times, Fiji Sun before we could come to a conclusion on how we see this media decree. You could just gather from the meeting that they have their own point of view, so it would be good to sit down one-on-one with the various organisations.

Last week, PINA vice-president, John Woods, broke ranks and called for the organisation to relocate. He also strongly criticised PINA for "kowtowing to the Fiji censors", saying this was contrary to what the organisation stood for - freedom of expression.

A SWOT analysis of PINA staying in Suva, compiled by by outspoken Avaiki Nius editor Jason Brown, reads:

Strengths: strong familiarity with regional centre and diplomatic community in Suva

Weaknesses: extensive evidence of regional positions going mainly to Fiji residents, leading to a failure in transparency and accountability to those members outside Fiji

Opportunities: playing a significant and enduring role in helping Fiji return to normalcy, facilitating effective regionalism

Threats: continued censorship and Fiji-centric approach to regionalism, possible ouster due to law changes

But the most insightful comments come from a colleague on the ground in Suva:

The draft Fiji Media Decree adds further fuel, I believe, to the PINA debate. While PINA is a professional organisation, the Pacnews service is a news (media) service which admittedly, is regional in focus and regional in ownership (through PINA). It is, nevertheless, a media service.

How will Pacnews be viewed by the interim regime - as a "foreign-owned" entity? Given the decree's requirement that Fiji-based media organisations/entities be 90 percent Fiji-owned and that all directors be resident Fiji nationals there are indeed questions PINA will, sadly, now have to address with regards to Pacnews' future.

If, the interim regime makes an exception for PINA/Pacnews - again, sadly, this will only further fuel the accusations that PINA is "accommodating" towards the interim government. Some interesting times ahead with some difficult decisions to be made!!!

It will definitely be interesting to see which way the Fiji Times goes - toe the line and accept the 10 percent shareholding; sell their Fiji flagship (maybe to Fiji Sun?); or close down and have all their equipment shipped abroad to expand/improve one of News Corp's other newspapers? (What are the chances that the interim-regime will back down and accept a 49 percent foreign ownership?? Any one for bets??)

It's also interesting to see Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum arguing the Fourth Estate debate in favour of media organistaions when his own interim regime and most other governments tend to dismiss the media's "fourth estate" role. It is also a great pity that most of his arguments about the Fiji Times ownership is to do with the fact that the newspaper has not given the interim regime the recognition/legitimacy it feels it deserves. Media organisations are business entities - just like other commercial organisations.

If you are going to argue loyalty to a country (more so to an unelected government in this case) where do you draw the line? What about other foreign owned companies in Fiji? Already, we have the Reserve Bank of Fiji leaning on Fiji-based but mostly foreign-owned banks to be "culturally conscious" of the needs of Fiji's people. What next, - demand that Fiji-based but foreign-owned companies declare their loyalty to the government of the day?

Interesting that mention is made of plagiarism but there is no acknowledgement in the draft that the Code of Ethics is an almost complete "lift-out" from the Fiji Media Council!! In all this, there are some good aspects to the decree but by and large, it simply continues (although in camouflaged form) the censorship the interim regime has put in place.

To media freedom.....

• Draconian draft Fiji media law triggers news group protests
• Fiji media digests tough crackdown - TVNZ video
• Fiji draft media decree draconian and punitive
  

A Fiji students’ internet coup – a decade on

IN A couple of months, it will be a decade since the University of the South Pacific student journalism students staged their own internet coup with award-winning coverage of the George Speight “attempted” coup in Fiji on 19 May 2000. While renegade businessman Speight and his journalist offsider, Jo Nata, were eventually scapegoated into prison for treason, the politically acceptable face of the Speight coup, Laisenia Qarase, consolidated his power from caretaker leader to elected prime minister – twice. But, as we know, Qarase was no paragon of democracy and was subsequently ousted by a coup by the military’s Commodore Voreqe Baimimarama in December 2006. Many of the group of students who covered the Speight coup for Pacific Journalism Online and Wansolwara and won a string of awards from the Journalism Education Association in Mooloolaba, Queensland, that year have gone on to bigger and better things. Wansolwara editor Reggie Dutt, for example, is now at Bond University doing a masters degree. But the heady moments of that coup coverage will never be forgotten. The students' story was told in a short video, Frontline Reporters, which has now been posted on the Pacific Media Centre’s YouTube channel for posterity. The university unilaterally closed the student journalists' website and tried to gag the newspaper (actions later condemned by the faculty board of the School of Humanities) but the students continued filing their stories to the University of Technology, Sydney, which set up a special coup website.

An earlier video (1999), Pasifik Niusbeat, tells the story of the early stages of online newsreporting and Radio Pacific at USP. You’ll recognise many young media faces familiar around the region today. Another video, Fri Pres, covers the fight for media freedom across the region in 1996. Produced and presented by David Robie, and reported by Stevenson Liu and Priscilla Raepom, it was broadcast by EMTV in Papua New Guinea and Fiji Television. The astonishing thing about this University of Papua New Guinea programme is that while it was made 16 years ago, it could just as easily have been talking about post-coup Fiji censorship and the rest of the Pacific today.

Pictured, a clip from Fri Pres with then PNG Forestry Minister Tim Nelville talking about a death threat on talkback radio.

• Frontline reporters: A students’ internet coup
• Frontline Reporters: Coup coverage by student journalists [USP video]
• Press freedom videos on Pacific Media Centre YouTube channel

Café Pacific’s awards to spice up the new decade

CAFÉ PACIFIC’S scribes have been on leave so we are a bit slow off the mark for our New Year honours. Still, better late than never. Here is a brief lineup as 2010 starts cruising:

Newspaper of the year – The Fiji Times: As a crusading daily under the helm of battling Netani Rika, it is hard to go past this Australian-owned publication – the strongest daily newspaper in Fiji in spite of its past political baggage and track record that goes right back to its colonial days in Levuka. While Bainimarama’s regime regularly chokes for breakfast over this Murdoch paper and blames it (along with Fiji Television) for the “need” to impose its promised/threatened new media law, the rest of the region can thank Rika and his team for keeping up the good fight and exposing life under media censorship.

But we should not get carried away with the accolades. The Times still has plenty of flaws in both its coverage and strategy. The region also needs to acknowledge the courage of many other journalists in Fiji and the resolve and commitment of other media in tackling the regime in rather more subtle and intriguing ways. Things need to be kept in perspective globally too, there is a quantum leap between the relatively mild (but inexcusable) press freedom abuses in Fiji and the truly repugnant violence against media in such countries as Burma and even in a democracy such as the Philippines where 30 journalists can be assassinated by private militia in one dreadful killing field obscenity and when Filipino radio talkback broadcasters or reporters, in particular, can be murdered with near impunity for exposing corruption.

Media film – Balibo: The on screen version of the murder of five journalists working for Australian news media – two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander – by Indonesian special forces invading East Timor on 16 October 1975 has revived controversial and painful memories. Not only has the Robert Connolly film reflected on the wounds of the past, and even stirred the wrath of the widow of the lead journalist killed, Greg Shackleton, it has triggered debate about journalistic professionalism in an age when bravado was perhaps more important than the safety concerns dominant today.

In a recent clandestine showing of the film – banned in Indonesia – to journalists in Jakarta the emphasis was on the “journalism” rather than the human rights issues. Warief Djajanto Basorie of the Jakarta Post wrote:

Balibo can be labelled a political film, a war film, a human rights film, or a journalism film.

After the Makassar screening, discussion focused on the journalism. The question asked: As journalists, what can you learn from the film?

In covering a conflict, it tells you to make a choice. Either you stay or you go, replied one participant.

“I would go,” he said emphatically.

Most of the 31 journalists present agreed. The majority argument was to leave the war zone, prioritising safety and the ability to continue reporting in the future.

At least two participants, however, insisted they would stay for the story because it was “too big a story to miss”.

Basorie claimed the five murdered newsmen were “embedded journalists” – embedded with Fretilin.

Independent newspaper – Wansolwara: The student journalism newspaper published by the University of the South Pacific deserved to win the Ossie Award for regular publications this year for publishing under a state censorship regime. Not only did the courageous students publish a special edition examining the media in Fiji under a military regime, but they also reported global warming, environmental issues and human rights in the region.

Wansolwara, which has not only won the most Ossie awards of any publication in Australia, NZ or the Pacific (10, plus it scooped the pool in 2000 with the online and print coverage of the George Speight coup). For 13 years, the newspaper has been self-funded by the students themselves through advertising revenue. But this year, the students brought off a coup themselves – with a deal to publish their newspaper as a liftout in the daily newspaper Fiji Sun. This immediately lifted their circulation from 2000 to more than 20,000.

Unfortunately the Reader’s Digest judge surprisingly overlooked this newspaper’s achievements and quality and awarded the “best regular publication” prize to AUT University’s Te Waha Nui instead.

Media monitoring agency – Reporters sans frontières (RSF): This award is well-deserved globally for 2009, but RSF needs to beef up its Pacific content, not just concentrate on Fiji and one or two other higher profile issues. In its roundup for the year, RSF highlighted the Ampatuan massacre – largest ever killing of journalists in a single day - and the unprecedented wave of arrests and convictions of journalists and bloggers in Iran. The agency’s summary for the year:

76 journalists killed (60 in 2008)
33 journalists kidnapped
573 journalists arrested
1456 physically assaulted
570 media censored
157 journalists fled their countries
1 blogger died in prison
151 bloggers and cyber-dissidents arrested
61 physically assaulted
60 countries affected by online censorship

Check out the full report.

Incidentally, for those with special concerns on internet freedoms, it is good news that Lucie Morillon has been appointed as the new head of RSF. She established the RSF office in New York five years ago and has long been a champion of online free speech.

The efforts of the new Pacific Freedom Forum, the International Federation of Journalists and the Pacific Media Centre's Pacific Media Watch also deserve praise for their specifically Oceania work.

Independent blog – Croz Walsh’s Fiji: Crosbie Walsh is not actually a journalist. However, as an adjunct professor and retired founding director of the University of the South Pacific’s Development Studies programme, he is an acute observer and commentator about facts and falsehoods about Fiji. Thrust into blogging almost by accident (he became rather frustrated over poor media coverage of the realities in Fiji), he established his own excellent and reliable information and analysis website in a bold attempt to make sense of the complexities of Fiji’s political, social and economic order since the 2006 coup.

In the process, his blog has embarrassed many leading journalists who profess to be “experts” on Fiji by repeatedly exposing the shallowness of their reporting. He has also been a counterfoil for some of the rabid anti-Fiji regime blogs (including several run or contributed to by journalists) and their propaganda and lies. The context and complexities may be frequently missing from mainstream media coverage, but Croz is filling many of the gaps and balancing the misrepresentations. A comment in a recent posting has taken AAP's Tamara McLean to task:

A Tamara McLean article in the NZ Herald/AAP provides readers with a rehash of what was once news, and "fresh" comments from "an Auckland University academic sympathetic to Bainimarama" (Prof Hugh Laracy) countered by three "Pacific specialists (Dr Jon Fraenkel, Jone Baledrokadroka and Prof Brij Lal) at the Australian National University" who are not." The use of "academic" and "specialists" tells readers where Tamara is coming from, but it's neither subtle nor accurate for all four are academics and specialists.

Special freedom of speech award - José Belo: For remaining defiant in the face of threats and a legal onslaught over his exposes of corruption that could have led to imprisonment in East Timor. He was ultimately saved by the collapse of the trumped up “criminal defamation” case against him and Tempo Semanal.

Pictured: A National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) protest against the killing of media workers (Photo: Bayanihan Post) and José Belo of East Timor at work (Photo: Etan).

• One dangerous place for reporters
• Ampatuan massacre map and timeline
  
• How should we respond to Balibo?
• Wansolwara's hot press deal
• Wars and disputed elections: The most dangerous stories for journalists
• Croz Walsh on Fiji snippets and the media
• Bainimarama winner in Fiji's darkest hour
• Croz Walsh's PIPSA paper on Fiji blogs
• Criminal defamation case dropped against Tempo Semanal
• Cafe Pacific's New Year awards at PMC
  

Fiji media freedom - news from another angle

By Crosbie Walsh

RADIO NZ reports that the Fiji government will soon sign an agreement with Fiji TV for a government channel to broadcast from two to seven hours a week. Government also plans to sign an agreement with the Fiji Sun to include a 12-page weekly report on government policies and programmes. A new media law decree is also likely to be introduced when the emergency regulations expire next month.

Government stands internationally condemned for its "infamous" emergency regulations -- and restrictions on "media freedom" that were the main purpose of the regulations. Pacific Freedom Forum (PFF) would even like to see the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) remove its offices from Suva because of current press censorship.

There is no question that, in normal circumstances, the media should be free, and no question either that in all circumstances the media should publish fair, honest, informed and balanced reports. Anything less is media negligence, media licence or sheer propaganda, not media freedom. It is not enough for people within the media to protest. Freedom has to be earned. Others, outside the media, will decide where the pendulum rests between "freedom" and "licence."

My crude "contents analysis" of the Fiji media since my blog started is that it often fell short of its stated goals. Its idea of balance, as stated in earlier posts, was usually to publish one statement from the government and one each from up to five government opponents, making the tally not 1:1 but 1:5. Its selection of news was also biased, focusing far more frequently on what someone said government got wrong than on what the government was trying to do.

While not in agreement, I have some sympathy, therefore, for Permanent Secretary of Information Lt. Col. Neumi Leweni when he said: “If I was given the choice, I’d leave [the censorship controls] there for the next five years, ” thereby making it clear that Fiji media should not expect to go back to reporting the "irresponsible" way they did prior to April 10 when the Public Emergency Regulations were enacted. He said the controls would be lifted if media organizations agreed to willingly follow the direction that was being set by his ministry.

While this may seem Orwellian and outright draconian, Leweni does have a point. Much reporting, he said:

constantly focused on the negative ... [and] carried one-sided and sensationalised stories in its coverage of politics, crime and most other events.

The government’s position is you feed the public with bad things and it registers. In some instances it could lead to people doing whatever is being published. You’d be surprised if you asked the police for statistics on people breaking the law. They’ll tell you it’s dropped tremendously in the past month. It’s to do partly with the media. You feed the public good things and shape public perception with positive things, they will react accordingly. When you dish out negative issues and a lot of other things like crime, etc, it gets to people and in the end they produce those sorts of activities themselves.

From my discussions with people on the streets, they actually appreciate the news more now with a lot of positive issues being addressed ... and it’s also come from government departments that they’re now getting calls from reporters on positive stories whereas before, a lot of them were reluctant to answer questions because it was based mostly on negative issues.

It [is said] bad news sells [but] the media is still selling their newspapers....and there are a lot more positive issues being addressed in the media now.

Professor Crosbie Walsh is a former director of the Institute of Development Studies at Massey University, New Zealand. He lived in Fiji for five years and built up the Development Studies programme at the University of the South Pacific. His research interest is as a population and development geographer and in globalisation.

• More of Crosbie Walsh's analysis on his blog
• Fiji regime tightens grip, plans own media
• Veteran media freedom champions speak out
• Pragmatic approach to Fiji censorship
• What the real stories Pacific journos miss out on

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

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

Media7 reruns feed the Fiji political divide

THE RECENT Media7 programme on Fiji has brought the local chooks out of the woodwork since it was rebroadcast on both ABC's On the Mat and Fiji TV's Close Up programmes. Sadly, a handful of the scribes have lined up on race and cultural affiliation grounds rather than reasoned arguments. A couple even made their snap judgments before watching (or hearing) the programme. Some have taken the cue from that fundamentalist politician of the right Mere Samisoni, who fired off a diatribe to Fiji Television:

So literally the power of the majority of the Fijian population who make up 57% of the general population, has been "stolen by gazetted legislation by this IR [illegal regime]" yet this principle was not even touched on by the [Media7] debate or your follow up comments for the illegally removed government and multi-party cabinet which offered legitimacy and hope to a multicultural society.

The debate legitimised the power of the gun and that might is right.

Excuse me? The programme did nothing of the sort. None of the panelists spoke in support of a military regime or against democracy. The case was actually made for more understanding of the Fiji plight, and in support of a more considered and compassionate response politically from New Zealand instead of knee-jerk actions. And also for less media bias. Having worked as a journalist and as a media educator in many countries globally and having also lived in Fiji at the time of the deposed Qarase government, I would have to describe that administration as the most fundamentally racist, corrupt and opportunist I have ever experienced. And yet this is the sort of "democracy" that some media people remain starry eyed over. Fortunately, there have been more comments from Fiji journalists favourable to the Media7 debate and who actually listened or watched.

One example:

I commend you on your unbiased views and opinion on the current situation in Fiji. It was replayed for Fiji viewers on Close Up at Fiji One. Good on you.

And another - at length:

The short-sightedness of the New Zealand/Australian governments will be detrimental for a solution in Fiji. It's been two years - and if confrontational diplomacy hasn't worked so far, it won't in future. It's time for the NZ/Australian media to realise this - and more importantly, make sure that their public do so too. The government will soon follow. And so will progress on getting Fiji back to democracy.

What the region needs right now is a Pacific statesman - Sir Michael Somare is doing his bit but the Samoan PM isn't doing anyone any favours with his outbursts. This is a time when thinking outside the proverbial box is so important.

Fiji is different and will always be different from other Pacific Islands nations. So a different approach and solution is required. If the regional leaders are going to place great hurdles along the way, Fiji will only stumble. Ease the sanctions, allow people with knowledge and experience to help move Fiji forward. I think if Fiji fails to move towards a sustainable democratic process in the next year or so, it will be as much a failure on the part of the Pacific Island leaders, as it will be that of [Voreqe] Bainimarama and his IG.

I was happy to see some of these themes emerge in the discussion from the panelists on the Media7 programme. Hopefully it has woken up some more journalists and politicians.

Café Pacific wonders why the revealing segment shown at the start of the Media7 item was culled out of both the sanitised On the Mat and Close Up versions. In the case of Close Up, a comment by presenter Russell Brown about Fiji's leaders as sometimes being presented by media as "self-serving and thuggish" was thought too likely to spark off a new round of regime intimidation. So discretion won out.

Media7's Fiji on ABC's On the Mat
Media7's Fiji on Fiji TV's Close Up
Media7's Fiji - uncut!
Media7's blog on Fiji

Treason? I've got a little list

More from one of Café Pacific's Laucala correspondents who keeps a reality check on Fiji with a touch of satire ...

Fiji is funny. The coup is now generating humour and the past politicians are becoming hilarious. Eighteen months after the coup of December 2006 Laisenia Qarase, the former Prime Minister was kicked out of government, his government house and his government car. He has now realised that something is wrong and become so incensed that he filed a treason complaint with the police on the grounds that the December 6 coup was illegal.

Treason. Doesn’t the word make you cringe, go pale with fear at being hanged, drawn and quartered or at least exiled for life to the island of St Helena where you will view the house where Napoleon Bonaparte contemplated his glorious past, France, freedom and failure?

Qarase lodged his treason claims against a formidable group of people that include the Interim Prime Minister who led the coup, the Chief of Police who was an army officer and part of the coup. Oh, yeah, did I forget to tell you it was the coupmaster who made him Chief of Police.

But there are civilians on the alleged traitors list too. It includes the aged and dignified Catholic Archbishop Petero Mataca and the 45 members of The National Council for Building a Better Fiji (NCBBF). One name on the list is John Samy, the gentle spoken boss of the NCBBF Secretariat who has led the way writing the People’s Charter with its message of love thy neighbour.

Dear John also appeared on the front page of (The Fiji Sun, September 6) with his photograph and the headline "Coup was illegal: Samy". He denies saying that, but it brings a smile or scowl to the face, but which face or faces!

I’m not sure who all the 45 members of the NCBBF are but they include Mahendra Chaudhry, who must have got wind of the treason charge as he resigned from the council a few weeks ago and is now defending himself with a phalanx of political jargon. There are another 44 other people on that guilty council list. They include academics, traditional chiefs, business people, trade unionists, a woman from an NGO and a priest who has spent many years helping the poor.

Obviously this is a meddling priest. We all know that there only around half the nation live in poverty or damn near it. This priest says so little about the other half of the population. Now, there is prejudice for you, and as we learned from Qarase – treason!

Mick Beddoes, the former leader of the Opposition, is an interesting guy. Big in body, bold in voice and so convinced that he is right. He has now publicly supported the treasonous charge brought by Qarase and company against the army and those nasty NCBBF members.

But, wait, there is more. If you had watched the Fiji TV news on Monday, September 8, there was a news item saying that Mick, the man, has joined the NCBBF when it started. He attended the meeting, took the allocated allowances and then resigned. So Mick, the man must also want to be in court in the defendants’ box when the treason trial begins. Good man, that Mick is, he recognises the error of his ways, and is preparing to suffer the consequences. I don’t know if he is Catholic or Methodist or whatever, but on St Helena, I am sure the Archbishop will give Mick good Christian counselling.

This Mikado story took another turn today. A former Fiji police commissioner said in a serious voice, so we would not laugh, that it would be difficult for the present police commissioner to be impartial in his investigations of the Qarase accusations, when he is also mentioned in the complaint, as being implicated in the coup.

Let me end with Major Lewini, the government spokesperson who seems to be
always lost for words, but who can make up for it with scowls and a few mumbled key phrases. Today he inferred that Qarase and his team are having foul fun and no good would come out it. Other men make the humour, Lewini is the straight man. We do need a reality check in Fiji, or at least in Suva, where all this stage cavorting is going on.

Last Sunday on TV, the interviewer was conducting a serious discussion on proposed new rules for the next general election. He said to one of the participants who was talking about recreating part of the political past, that the boat has already left the wharf. A neat metaphor.

The way I see it, the boat left the wharf during December 2006 and it’s getting further away. It’s difficult to see when it’s going to return and when it does, will it hit the wharf with a great wallop and damage both the people and the goods on board?

Media protest over Hunter expulsion from Fiji

Still smarting from last week's embarrassing allegations by the Fiji Sun, Fiji TV and - particularly Netani Rika's Saturday expose in the Fiji Times accusing and naming interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry over his tax affairs, the regime hasn't wasted much time in turning its rage onto the messenger. In this case, Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter (pictured) was on a one-way plane ride from Fiji to Oz today after eight years in the country (plus a previous spell when he was forced out by Chaudhry when he was PM before the Speight coup in 2000). Chaudhry declared he was filing defamation writs against both the Sun and the Fiji Times. Media organisations have vented their outrage at the arbitrary move, claimed to be because Hunter was deemed a 'security risk'. The Fiji Media Council said it was shocked by the seizure then expulsion of Hunter, especially as he still had a further 18 months to run on his work permit. Chairman Daryl Tarte protested in a statement:
The action by the Immigration Department, with the approval of the Minister, was taken without due process being followed, without regard for is fundamental rights, without him having access to legal advice, nor any consideration for the plight of his family. He was taken from his home at 8.30 at night and transported to Nadi airport. Furthermore, the deportation took place despite an order from the High Court in Suva restraining the Director of Immigration from deporting Mr Hunter. The Minister’s justification for the deportation is that he is a prohibited immigrant under the new immigration act that came into force on January 3, 2008. No specific details of what Mr Hunter is supposed to have done were given.
Hunter said on arrival in Australia the Fiji media should carry on undeterred. Asked why he had been declared a 'prohibited immigrant', he said: "In my view, the fact that we revealed Mahendra Chaudhry's tax evasion and secret overseas bank accounts."
Interviewed on Radio NZ International, I warned of a new crackdown on Fiji media, adding: "The regime thinks the media should perform a parrot-like role but there is a long tradition of vigorous and free journalism in Fiji. The current media are upholding that tradition very well."

UNSURPRISINGLY, Dr Jim Anthony, who made headlines last year as the controversial choice to head an "inquiry" into the media organised by the Fiji Human Rights Commission, fired off a salvo to the Fiji Times : "... Good riddance to bad rubbish. All other foreign journalists on work permits in Fiji ought to be put on notice: all their permits will not be renewed. Fiji ought to get its act together and train and promote its own people to report the news fairly, accurately and in a balanced way right across the board ... Australia and New Zealand are not necessarily the only beacons of hope or measures of decency in the world." Among other major flaws, Anthony's media report was astoundingly flimsy about the degree of training and education that does go on in Fiji, ie the long-established University of the South Pacific journalism and diploma degree programmes and also the fledgling FIT course. (Netani Rika's view of the report? "Malicious, full of conjecture and untruths" ).
In an editorial headed WE ARE NO THREAT, the Fiji Times said: "The deportation of Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter as a security risk to this nation is deplorable. And his treatment as a human being was reprehensible. Taken from his home under the cover of darkness, he was driven to Nadi without being given time to change or say a word of farewell to his wife Martha and their daughter ... Even convicted fraudster Peter Foster was treated better than Mr Hunter."

• Fiji Times names Chaudhry - Netani Rika's article
• Russell Hunter's account of his 'abduction' in The Australian
• Hunter deemed a 'security risk'
• Carry on, Hunter tells Fiji media
• Fiji Media Council statement
• Pacific Radio News coverage
• Fiji Sun website
• IPS/Pacific Media Centre report - Shailendra Singh
• Pacific Media Watch reports
• The Jim Anthony media report