Media7 spotlight on reporting of Pacific issues

MEDIA7 turned to the Pacific for a change this week and profiled coverage of the region in the wake of the unveiling of the draft media freedom decree in Fiji. The controversial Barbara Dreaver report on Samoa's "gangs, guns and drugs" also got an airing - with some tart criticisms of the Broadcasting Standards Authority from the panel. Here is Media7's blurb on the programme (running four times over this weekend on digital TVNZ7). Watch it on YouTube - Part 1 and Part 2 - or on TVNZ on demand:

New Zealand television viewers were this week served up the first instalment of the $200-million dollar drama series, The Pacific.

But what about the real life dramas that are being played out in the Oceanic region and the millions of New Zealand dollars and other nations' foreign aid money that is spent to prop up various Pacific nations?

The reporting is patchy at best, given the shrinking budgets of mainstream media and the difficulties inherent in reporting from this sensitive region.

News organisations are finding it hard to report Pacific issues and hold regional governments to account in the face of increasing media censorship and repression.

Some of the problems can be put down to a clash of cultures. But journalists and editors face a daunting task when reporting on the actions of a military dictatorship, a semi-feudal monarchy and a group of emerging nations where tribal and clan loyalties are often at odds with basic democratic rights.

The Royal Commission into the sinking of the Tongan ferry, Princess Ashika, has opened up an unsavoury can of worms and the latest "media rules" about to be imposed by the Fijian regime will further stifle debate in that country.

Media7 this week surveys the media landscape in the Pacific with David Robie, Barbara Dreaver and Tim Pankhurst joining Russell Brown in the studio.

Dr Robie is director of the Pacific Media Centre and convenor of Pacific Media Watch. Dreaver is a seasoned Pacific affairs reporter who has experienced the heavy hand of a Pacific Island politician on many occasions.

Pankhurst, former Dominion Post editor and now chief executive of the Newspaper Publishers' Association, is a fierce advocate of media freedom in the face of threats and intimidation, such as we are seeing in Fiji.

• Media7 is recorded in front of a live audience in the TVNZ Auckland Television Centre on Wednesday evenings at 6pm.
  
  
• Also, hear David Robie commenting on the Fiji media and the proposed draft decree on Radio NZ's Mediawatch, hosted by Colin Peacock and Jeremy Rose.
  

'Rust bucket' Ashika disaster findings rock Tonga

REPERCUSSIONS from Tonga's "rust bucket" disaster that killed 74 people - mainly women and children - at sea in the kingdom last August are finally rocking the royal and noble establishment to its very core. And while several layers of maritime and government authorities have been exposed, some senior expatriates look set for paying a heavy price for the tragedy.

Comical efforts by Information Minister 'Eseta Fusitu'a to effectively gag the local Tongan media over the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Princess Ashika ferry disaster last August 5 were in vain as Matangi Tonga reported on the here-is-the-report-but-you-can't-have-it farce. Barbara Dreaver, writing on her TVNZ blog, also took a potshot at the Tongan government for "hiding behind procedures". As well as extensive coverage, the online news portal Matangi Tonga published a leaked copy of the inquiry report. It was also published by Pacific Media Watch.

The leaked report has been highlighted by the Scotsman for describing Lord Ramsay Dalgety QC, secretary of the Shipping Corporation of Polynesia, which operated the government-owned ferry, as "unfit to hold such an important position", "lacking credibility" and accused of being "evasive when giving evidence".

The commission also said the former director of Scottish Opera was "dishonest and lacked integrity in his role".

Lord Dalgety, 64, was arrested, charged with perjury, and put under house arrest for 24 hours on his last day of giving evidence to the committee in February.

Tonga imposed a blackout on reporting the case. Two others had been arrested earlier.

Radio NZ International reports that the New Zealand businessman who formerly headed the Shipping Corp, John Jonesse, is one of three people charged with manslaughter by negligence over the sinking of the Ashika.

Court officials named the other accused as the former skipper of the Princess Ashika, Makahokovalu Tuputupu, and the acting director of Tonga’s marine division, Viliami Tuipulotu.

The Shipping Corp itself is also facing a charge of manslaughter.

According to the Scotsman's Shan Ross, the final report details "unimaginable and careless errors by people in positions of responsibility":

It also says the sinking was the result of systemic and individual failures and that the deaths were both "preventable and senseless".

[Lord Dalgety] has been strongly criticised in the report for failing to order an independent survey before the purchase of the ferry, which he admitted to the commission in January had been a "rust bucket".

The report criticised Lord Dalgety's lack of competence in admiralty law, in which he said he was a specialist. It described as "disturbing" the fact that he did not have an up-to-date copy of the Shipping Act and admitted he had not "checked it for years".

A claim by officials that the vessel was in good condition or well maintained "is not only patently absurd, but dishonest", the report said. It notes the ferry was "grossly overloaded" the day it sank.

Lord Dalgety, a former Conservative councillor on Edinburgh District Council, moved to Tonga in 1991.

In 2008, King George Tupou V made him a law lord and privy counsellor with the title Lord Dalgety of Sikotilani Tonga – Lord Dalgety of Scotland.

Lord Dalgety holds a number of powerful and well-paid posts in Tonga, including chairman of the electricity commission.

The royal commission said it considered evidence regarding civil responsibility, but that determining criminal responsibility was up to other authorities. Police have said their investigations are continuing.

Meanwhile, the Tongan king is under pressure to sack members of government amid allegations they were in part to blame for the failures that led to the tragedy.

Pacific Media Watch's Josephine Latu has filed some excellent reports on the leaked inquiry, including a comprehensive backgrounder, on Pacific Scoop. The full inquiry report is on the Pacific Media Watch database.

Pictured: Top: Tongan Information Minister 'Eseta Fusitu'a tells local media they can't have the Ashika inquiry report she is holding. Photo: Matangi Tonga. Above: The Princess Ashika at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Photo: Royal NZ Navy.

• Special report: Why the Ashika tragedy is shaking the Sevele government to the core
• Damning inquiry report says failure of authority at the heart of Ashika
• Dishonest, evasive, lacking integrity – Scots QC damned after ferry tragedy
• Manslaughter charges laid over Ashika sinking
• Tonga hides behind procedures