New Zealanders may not be the best informed people in the world but they pride themselves on their sense of decency and fair play. Over the past week or so we've had several informed and balanced programmes on both radio and TV on Fiji. Our information was improving. Until tonight, when a TV1 News item reminded me of just how deeply biased and uninformed our media can be. And why New Zealanders are so ill-informed on Fiji. The item was so bad I found myself questioning media freedom and the role of NZ "parachute" journalists.
It started with the sensational News Headlines: "Talk of Uprising in Fiji"-- surely of extreme importance but unmentioned in the story! When the item started journalist Lisa Owen, freshly arrived from New Zealand, interviewed a Fijian female silhouette who spoke tearfully of the President's "treason", Fiji Law Society Dorsami Naidu who appealed to people within the government who "secretly doubted Bainimarama's master plan" (perhaps this was the talked-of uprising), and another anonymous person who asked the interview be not televised after reportedly receiving threats from the censors.
The journalist said some people asked NZ tourists to stay away to "deprive Bainimarama of tax dollars" (no mention of lost income in the tourist industry). Lisa continued: "Here in Fiji under the current military regime, it is illegal to hold a meeting if it includes the media or a conversation about politics". No mention was made to the 30-day Emergency Regulations which imposed these rules. Listeners would think it a normal condition.
This commentary was filmed against a backdrop of crowded buses, a squatter settlement, and a street beggar contrasted with Cdre Bainimarama, resplendent in his white naval uniform. No text was needed; the film told all.
How could any decent New Zealander do anything other than condemn the evil Bainimarama and what he's doing to Fiji!
On TV1 News tomorrow Lisa will report on one of Fiji's squatter settlements. No doubt we'll hear that poverty is worse due to the coup (not to the world recession and travel advisories from New Zealand and Australia*. Depending on the squatter settlement selected, we may even hear that many squatters are recent arrivals, impoverished by the Coup, when many new squatters are in fact Indo-Fijians whose land leases were not renewed due to pressure from some prominent supporters of the deposed Qarase regime. [P.S. I was wrong. Lisa interviewed three Fijians whose political comments were probably representative. But the item only lasted two minutes!]
What is the point of sending a journalist to Fiji who knows absolutely nothing about Fiji to interview three people of similar persuasion who tell us nothing new? Unless, in deliberate breach of the Emergency Regulations, she is deported ... and then TV1 will have another story!
*P.S. The original post had "sanctions"which is not strictly correct. Travel advisories (and ongoing negative reporting) have had a direct economic effect on tourism, Fiji's major industry.
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