De-constructing The Impartiality of Fiji's Media.

In a follow up to an earlier SiFM post, the media industry in Fiji, returns under the microscope.

Fiji Sun's Editorial Opinions are getting further scrutinized and the company had grudgingly published an analysis of their reportage, or risk being outed for non-compliance of the Fiji Media Council's Code of Practice: Article 2 or The Right Of Reply.

The excerpt of the Analysis:

No evidence for charter claims


9/15/2008
This is a content analysis of the Fiji Sun Editorial (Sept 2) against the NCBBF that we ask to be published in compliance with the Fiji Media Council Code of Ethics and Practice. Article 2 of the Code headed OPPORTUNITY TO REPLY says:

Media have an obligation to give fair opportunity to reply to any individual or organisation on which the medium itself comments editorially.

This is not the first time that we have cited the provision of the Code of the Media Council of which the Sun is a member and you have ignored the Code and refused to publish.

There is a word for those who preach the rule of law but do not feel bound to follow their own rules.

Like lying publicly that you had not received Mahendra Chaudhry's letter after the Media Council had asked you to print them!

This communication is being copied to the Media Council to whom a complaint will be made if this reply that was sent to you last week is not published.

Paragraph 1

Fiji Sun alleges: “As the draft Peoples Charter “Consultation process gets into full swing, it is already clear that any claim of public acceptance will be hopeless, unreliable and without credibility”

Comment

The Fiji Sun does not provide any evidence to support its claim that the current NCBBF consultation process will be unreliable.

The NCBBF response form to be filled in by members of the public was professionally prepared to provide reliable data about people's opinion for or against the draft Peoples Charter.

The Fiji Sun's view logically follows from its stated public position calling for the rejection of the draft People's Charter. Fiji Sun reporters in the last 10 months have never covered the public consultation meetings of the NCBBF and thus its claim dismissing the result of the consultation process, when it has just started, is the wishful thinking of the foreign Editor and his local lackey, reflecting the desire of the owners of the Fiji Sun who support the SDL Party.

They want the public consultation process of the NCBBF to fail and be discredited.

The Fiji Sun is afraid that the majority of the people of Fiji may support the draft Peoples Charter so this Editorial wants to say before the result is known that it will be unreliable.

The Fiji Sun Vodaphone TXT Poll last week answer to the question whether people regard the Peoples Charter as the way forward for Fiji showed 75 per cent Yes and 25 per cent No.

The Fiji Sun does not even accept the result of its own Public Opinion Poll!.

Paragraph 2

Fiji Sun alleges: “First there was to be a referendum on the Charter. Then, as widespread opposition became apparent, there wasn't”.

Comment

In August, the NCBBF in response to a similar claim by the Sun, wrote to the Editor a letter [that was never published] explaining that the NCBBF had considered the option of a national referendum at a meeting in April 08 and decided to defer this option because it is like convening an election and would cost as much as having an Election.

The letter said the referendum option is still open and can be reconsidered. In response to a statement by Laisenia Qarase in the Fiji Times, the NCBBF advised him that he could raise the national referendum option for serious consideration at the Presidents Dialogue Forum later this year.



Paragraph 3

Fiji Sun alleges: “Then we were told there will be consultation among stakeholders, followed by equally wide consultation with the general public. It hadn't happened and isn't happening.

Consultation implies explanation and exchange of views and that is exactly what is not taking place in this process”

Comment

Again, this claim is totally false. It has no factual foundation.

The Sun has not named which promise to which stakeholders they are referring to.

If the Editors mean the political parties and other organisation leaders that had refused the invitation to them as stakeholders to be part of the NCBBF, then the claims is clearly false.

If the Fiji Sun means the public of Fiji, there have been already two phases of consultations by the NCBBF outreach teams that had taken place over the last 12 months involving dialogue in over 1000 villages and settlements all over Fiji.

The third more intensive phase has just begun. The Fiji Sun was invited many times to cover some of these consultations but the Paper never did and still has not done so. No wonder the Editors believe such consultations are not happening!.

Paragraph 4

Fiji Sun alleges: “The consultation” programme is an effort to sell the Charter and as such the “consultation” team are extolling the virtues of the document while glossing over - or simply omitting its highly controversial and potentially dangerous aspects”.

Comment

The Fiji Sun does not explain what are the controversial and potentially dangerous aspect of the Peoples Charter they are referring to. Calling the draft Peoples Charter “dangerous” is naïve scaremongering because this only compels people to obtain a copy of the draft Peoples Charter to read and find out if the Fiji Sun's view has any substance.

They will find it has no substance.

Thanks to the Fiji Sun for inadvertently encouraging people to read the draft People's Charter!

Paragraph 5

Fiji Sun alleges: “Now we discover that people who tick Yes or No in this charade of a public vote will be asked to give their names, addresses and telephone numbers.

Why? Well we are told this is for verification purposes but if people decline to divulge their addresses and telephone contacts, their “votes” will still be counted.”

Comment

There is nothing unusual about filling official survey response forms that ask for respondent's contact addresses, including telephones numbers.

This is a voluntary consultation form and respondents are merely requested their address for future verification [including by the news media], to strengthen the integrity of the NCBBF consultation process.

The Fiji Sun need not worry about the internal verification system of NCBBF.

It seems that the Editorial writer has not closely read the response forms it is criticizing and further, he has also not been reading or hearing the NCBBF repeated statements to the media that filling of the Response forms is voluntary.

Those who do decide to fill the forms will be under no compulsion or threat, for the forms provide for them to state their opinions freely if they support or do not support the draft Peoples Charter. It seems the Fiji Sun would like people to believe the Police and soldiers will be at these public consultations to intimidate people to support the draft Peoples Charter! The Fiji Sun will allege anything to discredit what it has already decided to oppose. The Response Form is transparent and it is simply a way of recording people's attitude to the draft Peoples Charter.

The Fiji Sun desperately wants the NCBBF public consultation process to be everything that it alleges. They are going to be disappointed because the consultation process was designed to have integrity.


Paragraph 6

Fiji Sun alleges: “But lets be under no illusions. This Charter will be declared accepted. It will be declared law, the Constitution not withstanding and this document that blatantly undermines the Constitution will be declared adopted in support of it”


Comment

The Fiji Sun Editorial writer obviously has been deaf to the NCBBF explanation that the draft Peoples Charter is merely a statement of commitment to certain principles and proposals for development.

It is not a legal document.

It will strengthen, not undermine the Constitution.

The Sun has not explained how the draft Peoples Charter undermines the Constitution.

Paragraph 7

Fiji Sun alleges: “This world of “newspeak” , as envisaged by the NCBBF, a world in which the Constitution in which Big Brother always knows what is best for us”

Comment

The attempt by the Fiji Sun to portray the NCBBF as promoting an Orwellian world of totalitarianism is a ridiculous fantasy.

The Fiji Sun in fact has created its own world of totalitarian propaganda by refusing to publish NCBBF responses to critical comments on articles that appear in the Fiji Sun, in blatant breach of the Media Code of Ethics and Practice that require the Fiji Sun to practice balanced reporting and publish comments that respond to its editorial and opinion articles.

It is sheer hypocrisy for the Fiji Sun to talk about democracy and the rule of law when it blatantly breeches its own media rules, to be fair, continuously and without shame.

Fiji Sun knows best what its readers should know and alternative views from the NCBBF it suppresses at all cost unless we are willing to pay to advertise them.


Paragraph 8

Fiji Sun alleges: “A world in which we end all coups by putting the military beyond Parliament and the Constitution”.

Comment Another preposterous claim! It is obvious that the Fiji Sun Editorial writers are unwilling to recognize that the NCBBF has the support of the RFMF to establish a better Constitutional democracy where the role of the RFMF is well defined and accountable to the Constitution and the Government. The Fiji Sun has never articulated a better, more practical path back to constitutional democracy than that espoused by the NCBBF because it seems mentally incapable of doing so.

Former Fiji Times journalist and columnists, Kamal Iyer, whose latest opinion article attempts justify the media bias:

And prominent academic Dr Biman Prasad on page 11 of the Sunday Times commented, "Journalists must add to the making of better policies by reporting in a neutral manner". This was part of a feature "In the face of poverty" written by Fiji Times senior journalist Robert Matau [...]If journalists stay neutral and just re-write press releases or take "no comment" as a non-story, then Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward would not have won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing the Watergate scandal that resulted in the downfall of US President Richard Nixon.

If Fiji's media wasn't vigilant then the quarter billion National Bank of Fiji scandal would not have been exposed if journalists just took Jai Ram Reddy and David Pickering's accusations of corruption as just cheap politicking[...]

Dr Prasad's statement of journalists sta[y]ing purely neutral is similar to the desire of the State and politicians to control the media. This also has been a relentless campaign since our Independence. There are those in government, or indeed in the wide spectrum of the society, who will not want the media to dig up the truth. They will want to control the media from reporting on what already is common knowledge amongst our citizens[...]

Dr Prasad's neutrality theory therefore has no logic. It is like a driver consistently engaging the neutral gear on his/her car to save fuel without realising the damage being done to the gearbox.

In the same way if journalists stay neutral, shut their eyes, seal their lips and regard their profession as another job, the nation will suffer irreparable damage because of the misdeeds of devious, power hungry, corrupt and treacherous personalities and politicians.

Kamal Iyer perhaps is well read about misdeeds and corrupt politicians in Fiji, that it is quite difficult to separate his comments, as a independent viewer and he as a colluding subject.

T.R. Singh's perspective of the Fiji media's veneer of impartiality, is highlighted in an article titled "FIJI: The myth of a balanced, neutral and fair media" which was published on Pacific Media Centre website.

First and foremost, the connotations of neutrality, which Iyer so callously diminishes, is the corner stone of quality journalism. Unfortunately, those foundations have been seriously eroded in Kamal's Iyer's case, whose idea of neutrality is more closer to Robert Novak's outing of Valerie Plane.

It is beyond a stretch for Iyer to even consider himself and Victor Lal in the same league with Washington Post's Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, whose reports ignited the Watergate scandal.


On the aspect of accuracy and balance, a Fiji Daily Post article reports that the New Zealand's Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA), has upheld the complaints by Fiji's Solicitor General regarding Michael Fields reports on Radio New Zealand.

The excerpt:

NZ broadcasting authority upholds S-G complaint
15-Sep-2008 08:24 AM

THE New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) has upheld the complaint by Fiji Solicitor-General, Christopher Pryde against an item by journalist Michael Field broadcast on Radio New Zealand in March this year.

The BSA’s decision was received by the Solicitor-General’s office on Thursday.

Pryde had complained that the update on events in Fiji in the broadcast was an “uneducated, ill-informed, deeply biased, unbalanced, and false account of recent events in Fiji”.

The comments were in relation to the appointment of Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum as head of the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (FBC), the deportation of Russell Hunter, Justice Scutt’s criticism of the Shameen Report, and the criminal attack on the judge.

Radio New Zealand had said that the statements complained of were not material to the discussion.

The BSA said that the public has a right to expect that news and current affairs programmes would present material accurately.

Having upheld the complaint, the BSA declined to make any orders but said that the publication of their decision would serve as a reminder to commentators that they must ensure the accuracy of factual statements.

Fiji Sun also published the news story on BSA's decision.

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Fiji Media & The Echo Chamber In The Pacific.

It appears that the rumors of the dismissal of Fiji's Interim Finance Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry has finally been laid to rest. However, it has become apparent that the many media organizations in Fiji and abroad, were so overly eager to report a scoop and that resulted in a web of inaccuracies, ricocheting across the Pacific.

Such parroting of gossip and unbridled repetition of inaccurate statements may tend to be the hallmark of some media outlets, that are quantity driven and short in quality.
It also seems that, some of the media outlets were raring at the bit, to unleash a salvo of gloating reports about Chaudhry's sacking, allegedly for his role in taxing the conglomerate of Water exporters, like Fiji Water; that in the process the media outlets, knowingly or unknowingly contributed to the rumor mongering by quoting unnamed sources, that left themselves in an unenviable position of having an egg, plastered on their collective faces.

SiFM has chosen a selection of articles, that provide a comparative analysis of sorts, to the ping-pong of rumors across the Pacific.








On the examination of the Google search of Fiji contains the following stories.
One interesting aspect, was on the Radio Australia article (pictured above) titled "Fiji Minister Chaudhry Facing the Sack".



When the article is clicked, the title and content has been quietly changed to this new article (pictured below).




Sydney Morning Herald article:

Signs of rift between Fiji leader, arm


July 24, 2008 - 6:21PM

Fresh signs are emerging of a damaging rift between Fiji's coup leader and his closest military supporters who have shored up his government.

Commodore Frank Bainimarama has been forced to deny that he met on Thursday with his most trusted military advisers to discuss demands that he sack his right-hand man, Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry.

Chaudhry has acted as chief political ally to Bainimarama since the commodore led a bloodless military coup in 2006.

Chaudhry's Fiji Labour Party was the only major political party to back the putsch, which the international community has condemned.

Speculation has been mounting that Bainimarama might allow Chaudhry to take over from him as prime minister, and that Bainimarama could take over the presidency.

Such a move could afford Bainimarama immunity from prosecution over the coup and allow him to remain influential in Fiji's affairs. But any such plans could come unstuck of Bainimarama loses the support of his military commanders.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark this week said Bainimarama could be planning the next stage of his coup.

Asked about the possibility of him becoming president, Prime Minister Helen Clark noted there was already someone in that role, and "perhaps that is the next stage of the coup".

Media reports in Fiji on Thursday said a senior member of Bainimarama's interim government had been told to quit.

Former prime minister Laisenia Qarase, who was ousted by Bainimarama, said he believed the military council had demanded Chaudhry go.

"It could be the start of a very serious split between the council and the interim prime minister," Qarase said.

"This is not the first time that they have differed."

Chaudhry's falling out with senior military figures has been linked to the introduction of new taxes that this week forced the shut down of Fiji Water, whose exports are a big earner for the country.

The taxes, which forced the company to send about 500 workers home, have since been scrapped.

Bainimarama on Thursday held separate meetings with the military council and with Chaudhry about the Fiji Water situation. He denied Chaudhry had been sacked, or that he intervened to save his ally's skin.

Chaudhry also denied the military council had tried to force him out. "I was never asked to step down from my position as finance minister," he told the Fiji Times.
"Who orchestrated the speculations? This was done by my critics and the western and international countries."

But Chaudhry reportedly said late on Thursday that his job in taking Fiji's economy forward was almost complete, and he could soon consider resigning to prepare for elections.

Bainimarama has previously said interim cabinet ministers must resign if they are planing to run.

© 2008 AAP

A podcast from Radio NZ interviews Legend FM's news director, Vijay Narayan in attempt to flesh out the truth, from the speculation and innuendo as featured in a Radio Australia news article that, quoted from New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark, regarding the intentions of Fiji's Interim P.M in seeking the Presidential office.

The excerpt of the Radio Australia online article:

NZ PM says Fiji's Bainimarama may seek presidency

Updated Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:16pm AEST

NZ PM says Fiji's Bainimarama may seek presidency

New Zealand's prime minister, Helen Clark, says Commodore Frank Bainimarama could be looking for an exit strategy because he is guilty of treason. [AFP/Reuters]

The New Zealand prime minister, Helen Clark, says Fiji coup leader and interim prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, may seek to become the country's president.

Our New Zealand correspondent, Kerri Ritchie, says rumours about such a move have been circulating in Fiji for some time. Ms Clark says she had her doubts when Commodore Bainimarama made his promise last year to hold elections by March 2009.

"I must say I wasn't convinced by the assurances he gave the Forum leaders, so I wrote everything down," she said.

Ms Clark says Commodore Bainimarama could be looking for an exit strategy because he is guilty of treason. She says it is possible he may try to seize the presidency. "There's someone in that position at the moment, perhaps that is the next stage of the coup," she said.

Rumours have been circulating that Commodore Bainimarama could re-appoint Mahendra Chaudhry, currently the finance minister, as the country's prime minister.

An article in Pacific magazine by Ricardo Morris, attempts to sum up the day and justify the source of confusion. The excerpt of Morris' article:

Suva Thursday: A Day Of Leaks, Machinations, "Secret" Meetings And Speculation

By Ricardo Morris in Suva
Friday: July 25, 2008

For weeks it was clear all was not well on the “fourth floor” of the Home Affairs Building — the offices of Fiji’s military chief and interim Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama.

But what exactly was wrong?


On Thursday, Fiji’s interim regime could not contain the leaks from within its own ranks and the resulting rumor turned it into one of those dreaded Suva days when people wondered if more political unrest loomed.

Last week, Bainimarama’s “right-hand man,” his Permanent Secretary Parmesh Chand resigned in controversial circumstances.

This week, the bottled water industry was plunged into crisis as a 20-cents-per-liter tax on locally-bottled water took its toll. Water companies pleaded for the regime to reconsider the tax on both exports and local sales but to no avail. A week after the tax was imposed on July 1, the 10 companies collectively agreed to halt production.

But it wasn’t until Natural Waters of Viti Limited, the bottlers of world-famous Fiji Water, shut down its plant at Yaqara on Wednesday and sent more than 500 workers home, that Bainimarama decided to act.

The man accused of precipitating both the incidents is interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry.

Fiji Labor Party leader Chaudhry and respected civil servant Chand do not see eye-to-eye, according to a Pacific Magazine source who spoke to Chand several times well before his resignation last week.

Chand has persistently refused to talk about why he quit but the Fiji Times reported it was allegedly over “meddling senior interim Cabinet ministers and broken lines of communication.”

On Thursday, Chaudhry’s fate appeared to hang in the balance for his handling of the bottled water issue. The night before Bainimarama had resolved it by repealing the tax imposed by Chaudhry.

This came after Interim Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and members of Bainimarama’s Military Council — not Chaudhry — met with the water industry representatives on Wednesday night.

By Thursday morning, rumours were rife — on Fiji’s political blogosphere, among NGOs and on the streets — that the Military Council wanted Chaudhry to be sacked. First Bainimarama and then Chaudhry went on air to deny that a sacking or resignation was imminent.

Explaining Chaudhry’s sidelining, Bainimarama told Legend FM News he was not able to get in touch with Chaudhry on Wednesday afternoon since his mobile phone was turned off. He added that he wanted Sayed-Khaiyum to meet the industry representatives because he was neutral.

Compounding the impression that Chaudhry is in an embattled position, Parmesh Chand Thursday agreed to return to office, in what the Public Service Commission chairman Rishi Ram described as a “unanimous decision” between Chand and the commission.

Throughout the day, a flurry of meetings was taking place starting with Chaudhry meeting Army Chief-of-Staff Colonel Mohammed Aziz first thing in the morning. According to Chaudhry it was only a briefing on what had transpired in the meeting with the bottled water industry the night before.

After that Chaudhry and Bainimarama — who is ill — met at the commander’s residence but they both denied Chaudhry’s resignation was discussed.

Immediately after Chaudhry had left, Bainimarama’s Military Council and Sayed-Khaiyum went up to his Flagstaff residence.

The Military Council included Chief-of-Staff Colonel Mohammed Aziz, Immigration Director Commander Viliame Naupoto, military third-in-command Lieutenant-Colonel Ratu Tevita Roko Ului Mara and Police Commissioner Commodore Esala Teleni.

It is not clear what the meeting was about and officials would not comment.

A press conference had been announced at which Aziz was to have addressed the media but this was cancelled without explanation after the meeting with Bainimarama.

In a press conference late on Thursday Chaudhry reiterated there was “no question” about his position in the interim Cabinet and denied the issue involving Parmesh Chand was discussed with Bainimarama.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Chaudhry told journalists. He also laughed off questions about an alleged deal he struck with Bainimarama to leave office in a month.

Earlier in the day, Chaudhry claimed to Legend FM News the rumors of his alleged resignation were orchestrated by sections of the media “vested interests.”

He defended the decision to impose the tax on bottled water, saying it was a collective Cabinet decision. An emergency Cabinet session will take place on Friday morning at which Chaudhry says he will gauge the ministers’ reaction to the repealing before making a final decision.

Chaudhry also suggested to Legend FM he may quit soon, although not because of problems within Cabinet but because his work in rebuilding the economy was almost complete.

He said once he was satisfied the economy was on track he would resign and begin prepare to contest the general election, the date of which is still uncertain. All this comes as doubt grows over whether Bainimarama will keep his promise to hold elections in March 2009.

The regime has insisted electoral reforms and its People’s Charter for Change, Peace and Progress must be in place before the country goes to the polls. Last week Bainimarama said the target of early 2009 was unachievable telling Radio Fiji News “there will be no elections next year.”

However, the international community has been putting pressure on the regime to keep its word. The European Union reiterated its stand this month that it will not release aid money if the regime fails to hold elections early next year. Most of the aid is earmarked to help prop up Fiji’s struggling sugar industry.

While Fiji’s interim regime is at pains to project a united front, Thursday’s events — the leaks and the public contradictions of the protagonists — showed that that front may be bulging at the seams.

While Ricardo Morris mentions that the story was on the blogosphere on Thursday morning:

By Thursday morning, rumours were rife — on Fiji’s political blogosphere, among NGOs and on the streets — that the Military Council wanted Chaudhry to be sacked.

Perhaps the blogs Morris is referring to, are the postings on the blogs: Solivakasama and Rawfiji news, both of which hardly fit the description of accurate and reliable sources of information.



Such particular use of quotes from unnamed sources were instrumental in the W.M.D facade leading up to the Iraq invasion, as described in an article: "Second Time Around" appearing in the American Journalism Review.

Disappointingly, these flaws have reared their ugly head in the South West Pacific, and as such when reporters attribute their stories to an unnamed source, they are oblivious to the fact that, such reports are erroneous.
News outlets down line, which quote the erroneous stories fall into the same trap and their end product is rumors and speculation dressed up as fact, undeniably the case in this coverage.

By all accounts, the story of Chaudhry's dismissal or sacking, embarrassingly fails the basic test on accuracy- one of the pillars of quality journalism. I wonder if any media outlet would have the testicular fortitude to issue an apology for distributing such maligned reports? Or should the injured party, ponder about taking legal action against these media outlets?

A Canada Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) website outlines some guidelines when attributing to unnamed sources and it is highly advisable for journalists (print and broadcast)in the Pacific region, to start studying up on these guidelines, to prevent a repeat occurrence of 'echo chamber' reporting and drive-by journalism.

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Fiji Media Inc.

Fiji Media has come across some important challenges recently in two different stories, one dealing with Fiji TV's recent tango with the Police and the other with the book launch by Fr. Kevin Barr.

First story titled "We Were Denied Media Freedom" was paraphrased from Fiji TV's lawyer appears in an article by Fiji Times and covers the recent arrest of Fiji TV crew for disobeying a lawful order. "Freedom of the Press is limited to those who own one", a quote from A.J Liebling, which Cafe Pacific writer David Robies corrected me on in a sterling post.

The excerpt:

We were denied media freedom'

ERNEST HEATLEY
Thursday, January 24, 2008


POLICE detained and interrogated a television crew for five hours yesterday for allegedly "disobeying a police order" while covering a school dispute in Nasinu.

Reporter Emily Moli and cameraman Shalendra Datt were ordered into a police van and removed from Rishikul Sanatan College where they were assigned to cover the dispute between the school management and the principal.

Their arrest follows claims by Superintendent Waisea Tabakau of the Valelevu Police Station claimed that the two had failed to abide by a lawful order.

He had told the crew that they were interfering in police business by filming the goings-on at the school yesterday morning.

The pair said they were at the school property at the invitation of Rishikul College management.

SP Tabakau and about 20 officers of the Police Tactical Response Unit arrived at the college, escorting ousted principal Mahendra Pal.

Mr Pal was locked out of the college on Monday by an angry management who refused to acknowledge him as principal.

Ministry of Education officials and the police attempted to have Mr Pal reinstated.

As the officers escorted Mr Pal into the college, SP Tabakau ordered the TV crew to leave.

When they continued filming the event, the senior officer told the journalists they were "disobeying a police order."

Fiji TV Legal Manager Tanya Waqanika described the detention as "totally baseless and totally unjustifiable." "We were denied media freedom," she said.

"Our journalists were shooting inside the private premises on the invitation of the school management." Two more Fiji TV employees were detained at noon after they shot footage from outside the school compound on a public walkway.

Reporter Edwin Nand and cameraman Trevuz Chung were told to get into a police van. They were also told by SP Tabakau that they had disobeyed a lawful order.

They were released a short while later along with the equipment that police had seized.

Ms Waqanika said they would lodge a complaint with the Police Commissioner and the Fiji Media Council on the treatment.

The other story in another article from Fiji Times titled "Media Owners Distort Electoral Process: Barr", covers the gate keeping role of the media during elections.

Media owners distort electoral process: Barr

Saturday, January 26, 2008

MEDIA ownership by a few rich elite has been cause for specific distortion of the democratic electoral process, poverty activist Father Kevin Barr claims.

In his book Thinking About Democracy Today, which was launched earlier this week, he said the media was used to protect the interests of its own class and suppress any criticism of the status quo.

"Their particular influence can affect the outcome of an election," he said.

If "big money" is needed for democratic elections, then democracy can never be truly inclusive of the people, Father Barr writes.

The issue of media freedom has been under the spotlight for some time particularly since talks of a legislation to govern the industry was introduced by previous governments, he said.

"The internal policies of those who own media networks seriously curtail the news which filters down to us. They decide what we should see and hear and what we should not see and hear.

"The media moguls mostly come from families of the extravagantly wealthy who have a particular perspective on the world. Consequently much of what is reported to us is far from neutral," Father Barr said.

He said those who reported the news were not free to report the news and were subject to certain fear because of inbuilt policies and prejudices of those they serve.

The Fiji Times Editor-in-Chief Netani Rika who has served the company for 15 years said while the company was owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Limited, he had never once received a call from him or the publisher dictating how the newspaper should be run or what news to cover.

"Our newsroom is an independent operation within The Fiji Times and we attempt to report all the news, fairly and truthfully. We report without fear or favour. We welcome all views that help broaden our news coverage and our doors are open to everyone.

"If Fr Barr takes issue with the news we do or do not cover, he is welcome to bring the matter to us," Mr Rika said.

Communications Fiji Limited's Managing Director William Parkinson said it was a shame Fr Barr did not take the time to meet with media organisations to research these issues fully.

"Instead it would seem he has stuck to the usual sweeping generalisations thrown around by the misinformed. If he conducted real research he would find a very different story actually exists," he said.

Questions sent to Fiji Television Limited remained unanswered.

The usual defense by the Fiji Times and Communications Ltd. Perhaps consumers of Fiji news should look into Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting(FAIR) website and the contents, reinforces Barr's views on the matter.



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