Malo AUT digital student journos!

IT'S GREAT to see all these young Pasifika journos in the making getting into story telling in digital formats. John Pulu, Alistar Kata and Paul Fagamalo have just done us proud with a short news piece on the PIMA 2008 conference and the planned coming (if the the Nats elections debacle hasn't derailed it) of Pasifika television. There was a bit of a delay because of the enormous end-of-semester course pressures. But to me this is what it's all about - producing good quality news and current affairs. You can see it on the Pacific Media Centre YouTube channel. There was a great mood among the media students at AUT University at the time of the conference last month and this should eventually feed into the Pasifika media industry's new generation. Another short programme, done as part of the AUT television course, focused on the ancient Tongan rituals around kava. John Pulu is doing really well - another John Utanga perhaps. Malo guys! Pictured: Some of the PMC and PIMA gang. Photo: Alan Koon.

• Pasifika television on the way
• Kava Commune
• Pacific Media Centre on YouTube
• PIMA 2008 reports by AUT students
• New images page on PMC Online

Bias over the Fiji charter legal rebuff

YET ANOTHER example of local Fiji media bias ushered in the weekend editions of the press, this time over the High Court ruling that all work must halt on the People's Charter for Change, Peace and Progress. The Daily Post, for example, editorialised in its front page splash story "Charter halted": "Fiji is finally moving forward."

Inexcusable for an intro on the court ruling purporting to be fact. Of course, the next sentence attributed the opinion to deposed Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase (who incidentally became appointed caretaker prime minister after the George Speight coup in May 2000, thanks to the military). Now, the editorial handling of the story wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the media group is steered by Qarase's first cousin while the editor is his son-in-law.

Secondly, a ruling hours later by the Court of Appeal's Justice John Byrne actually imposing a stay on the judgment by Justice Filimoni Jitoko (until a substantive appeal hearing on Thursday, November 20) didn't get mentioned in the story. (However, it was flagged in a downpage strapline). The regime is seeking a judicial review on the ground that under the Proceedings Act the court cannot order an injunction against the state. Fijilive reported it this way as main news item: Charter work to continue, stay granted: "The interim government has successfully acquired a court injunction that will allow the National Council for Building a Better Fiji to resume work on the People’s Charter."

Other local coverage wasn't much better. Fiji free press at work? Some of the international media coverage was an improvement. Australian Associated Press reported: "Fiji's High Court has delivered a blow to the country's military-led government, ordering it to halt work on a document that would usher in constitutional changes." But even then, it didn't reveal all the fishhooks involved in the legal minefield.

Over at Avaiki Nius, Jason Brown has highlighted a persistent Pacific media problem - no-shows at donor expense. Another good read at the Pacific Media Centre is the latest fallout from the Niu FM saga earlier this year. But things are definitely on the mend. Pere Maitai is doing some great things in rebuilding the news service.

• Charter halted
• Charter work to continue
• Blow to people's charter
• Fiji's People's Charter

Global Voices version of the contempt letters affair

IRONICALLY, possibly the most informative summary of how Fiji bloggers have reacted to the "draconian prosecution" of the press, has been written by one, John Liebhardt, who has filed a few recent "overview" blogs on Global Voices about Fiji, ranging from the People's Charter to the environment. It doesn't seem to bother Liebhardt that he has been filing from (of all places) Ouagadougou in the African state of Burkina Faso - where he has lived for the past four years. (The IFJ statement statement is still the most direct challenge.) His latest blog on the contempt letters affair involving the Fiji Times and Daily Post kicks off:

For the second time this month, Fiji’s military government has threatened to send a newspaper editor and its publisher to prison for publishing a letter to the editor alleged to be in contempt of court. In mid-October, the Fiji Times and Fiji Daily Post printed a letter from a certain Vili Navukitu of Queensland, Australia, complaining about a recent high court ruling that legitimized the actions of the country’s president in dissolving the Parliament, and the elected government of Laisenia Qarase, immediately following the December 2006 coup that brought into power Commodore Frank Bainamairama.

The item has a few selected quotes from blogs, most anonymous and critical of the regime, but doesn't acknowledge that (1) the letter is arguably in contempt in the first place (although the response of the regime is overkill over what is vigorous debate); (2) contempt doesn't only apply to current court proceedings and the potential for impacting on a case, but also involves "scandalising" a court; (3) news media in Fiji clearly need to lift their game over the professional editing of letters. In countries like New Zealand, news media routinely check the bone fides of letter writers and edit letters over matters such as good taste and potential defamation (and potential contempt). There are also frequent allegations of bias over editorial selection of letters. In fact, letters is the largest category for complaints over fairness and balance against newspapers.

• Global Voices
• 'Draconian prosecution'
• Previous Café Pacific blog on this issue

Draconian Fiji responses to 'contempt'

FIJI'S JUDICIAL responses to contempt by two local newspapers become sillier and sillier. The contempt laws for scandalising the court were never meant to stifle vigorous debate about court rulings. Citizens Constitutional Forum chief executive Rev Akuila Yabaki says the draconian prosecutions "stifle free speech in an oppressive manner". The paranoid climate around the judiciary following last month's controversial High Court judgment declaring the post-coup regime to be legitimate is deteriorating. The contempt proceedings against the Fiji Times, after the newspaper's apology about an online letter to the editor, and now the action against the Daily Post are vindictive. The Attorney-General's office is pressing for the jailing of publisher Rex Gardner and editor Netani Rika.

Quite rightly, the actions have drawn protests from the International Federation of Journalists, representing some 600,000 journos worldwide - which has also taken the opportunity to challenge the regime's plans for a "media promulgation" law. IFJ said it was deeply concerned that "while Fiji's military government is spruiking its draft media law as a means to encourage media freedom and freedom of expression, an independent newspaper is being forced to defend contempt charges for publishing the opinion of a member of the public with which the government disagrees."

For the record, former Fiji prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry has not dropped his F$1 million defamation case against the Fiji Times as reported by the paper - he has merely amended the claim to drop the parent company, Murdoch's News Limited, from the proceedings.

A-G given 14 days to submit on Fiji Times penalty
Another Fiji daily held in contempt
IFJ statement
Push to jail Fiji Times editor
'We're in contempt' - and full text of the offending letter
Chaudhry's lawyer files amended claims

Vigilance for media freedom in East Timor

PETER CRONAU, one of the co-founders of Pacific Media Watch, has just done an interview with PMW's Josephine Latu about the state of media freedom in the Pacific 12 years on since the group's campaign to free Kalafi Moala from jail. (Moala was imprisoned unconstitutionally for contempt of Parliament). Cronau is busy writing a new book about East Timor and the case of the Balibo Five, the shameful murder by the Indonesians of five Australian-based journalists (including a Kiwi) back in 1975. He and his ABC Four Corners team won a Gold Walkley in 2006 for their programme Stoking the Fires about the bitter post-independence political rivalries in East Timor. This book is certain to rock the media and political establishments in Canberra with its revelations.

While there have been a few hard-to-find improvements in media freedom over the past decade or so, Cronau warns newshounds not to sit on any Pacific laurels. Vigilance is the name of the game. Peter - at the time director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ) - and Café Pacific's David Robie - then head of journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea - founded PMW at a particularly rocky time 21 years after the Balibo massacre:

Persistence by some journalists ... saw them reporting the Indonesian preparations for the invasion - and six media workers [the sixth, Roger East, was executed later on Dili wharf] paid with their lives for reporting this truth.

I guess the lesson to take from the book is that like all freedoms, freedom of the press is lost unless guarded vigilantly. That's the essential reason we set up Pacific Media Watch in the first place.

• Media freedom image from the Centru Jornalista Investigativu Timor Leste (CJITL) blog
• Interview with Peter Cronau
• Pacific Media Watch

Media freedom - by government edict!

FIJI'S regime, albeit "legal" nowadays, is pressing ahead with its controversial media law "promulgation". It will have a draft amalgation of media laws on the table by next month. Naturally, the local news media are back on the warpath. They are trying to broker some consultation before this media law gets too far down the track. Unfortunately, while the media has been quick to use its power, newsprint, airwaves and cyberspace to air its self-interested views, it hasn't done anywhere such a good job about canvassing the views of civil society and those who are so critical. Why are other stakeholders so intent on seeing the media perform better? Perhaps if the media had done something more proactive about getting its house in order - a bit like the NZ Press Council did with its first independent review in 30 years in 2007 - the stand-off wouldn't have got to this stage. A few quick words from Peni Moore, one of the civil society advocates commissioned to review the media (separately from the Jim Anthony fiasco), in her conclusion for the People's Charter:

To say the media was angry [over the Anthony report] is to understate their point of view. Radio, TV, newspapers and magazine editors and executives voiced their indignation, anger and disappointment at the report. Perhaps the Fiji TV best summarised the many media points of view, saying, that the FHRC seems to share the concern of all political parties and leaders that have been at the helm of power to have “controls that will weaken and severely dilute the rights of the media and individuals as enshrined in the 1997 Constitution”.
Fiji TV said that Anthony Report did not provide specifics on how the media have failed to meet their obligations, and said there is a tendency to heap most of the blame for Fiji’s political problem on the media. “This is quite unfair and below the belt”, commenting that media cannot allow themselves to be mouthpieces of
the government, politicians and political parties.
As a panacea or cure or stimulant toward improving media standards, the National Committee for Building a Better Fiji (NCBBF) recommended a number of changes which included the establishing of the Media Tribunal, that legislation to be enacted to ensure the development and regulation of professional standards of journalism and a levy to be raised to cover the costs.

This, surely, is a pointer to where the promulgation is heading. Ironically, just yesterday Fiji Media Council chief Daryl Tarte reckoned that "self-censorship" had been declining in Fiji. Also yesterday, the Fiji Times admitted it was in contempt over publishing a letter chastising the High Court over its controversial ruling about the legality of the regime.

• New media law draft set for December
• Self-censorship 'on decline' in Fiji
• Background to the contempt of court issue on PMW