USE THE NEW POWERFUL "SEARCH THE BLOG."
PM to Brief Melanesian Spearhead Group
The PM will meet with other the PM's of PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu in Port Vila on Friday. He told Auckland’s Radio Tarana [an important source of Fiji news] he hopes the MSG leaders, who supported Fiji’s Forum suspension, will understand his Government’s position. “This special meeting is very critical to Fiji as I would like to personally share with my fellow MSG leaders Fiji’s road map and the mandate that guides my government to ensure true, democratic, non-communal, elections for parliamentary representation are held by September 2014.” The meeting comes four weeks before the PACER meeting in Cairns. The MSG leaders earlier had voted for Fiji's suspension from the PI Forum (and non-attendance at the Apia PACER meeting) --but with barely concealed reluctance, and obvious pressure from Australia.
♥♡/♡♥ Lovers Beware - Truth is Stranger than Fiction
Police are evangelising "young people meeting at the Suva seawall, especially during unholy hours."Fiji Times. Police Operations Director Waisea Tabakau said couples found near the seawalls are being taught the Word of God. One has to remove the evil spirits to become a disciplined citizen. He also warned people not to roam around the seawall area during odd hours as they can be a victim of serious crimes. A young woman was raped there last week. FijiLive. [I should comment on this but find myself unable to do so!]
The Fiji Times' is At It Again.
As predicted, several smaller garment firms are having difficulty in paying the new minimum wages, but they can apply to the Wage Council for relief. Many other employers say they have no problems with the new minimum wage orders, and at least one has said the wage increase is long overdue. With this information, what heading would you give to a newspaper article on this topic? The Fiji Times, which has always claimed it presents balanced news (and I have argued to the contrary), chose "Employers Struggling to Cope with New Wage Order." Not -- Some Employers. Or -- Small Employers. Or -- Small Garment Employers. And certainly not the more positive -- "Most Employers Coping with New Wage Order."
To write a balanced account, they could have included an interview with an employer happy to pay the increased rate, or a garment worker on the higher rate (but who still lives below the poverty line), or made a note on the history of wages in the garment industry, or mentioned reasons other than wages for employer difficulties -- such as the world recession, declining Australian orders and industry inefficiencies. Instead they mentioned only the negative: the wage increase that could be blamed entirely on the Government's Wage Council, and so on Government.
How on earth can reasonable people urge the Government to relax media restrictions when it's almost a "given" that the Fiji Times will peck away with a succession of not so subtle anti-government articles like this! One article means little, but repeated day after day, the newspaper gives out a strong anti-Government message -- and an inaccurate, unbalanced account of the "news." In the context of the current political situation, it is especially important to remember that media freedom does not come without media responsibility. The minimum wage for Mining and Quarry workers will be increased by 40 cents an hour from next month. I wonder what the Fiji Times will write then.
Methodist Church
The Methodist Church is expected to ask the PM to allow annual Methodist Conference to go ahead but with a different format: a conference of all circuit members meeting in their respective areas rather than the one conference planned to meet in Rewa.
FijiLive poll. 75% said "Yes"
"Should the international community engage the Bainimarama Government and support its road map to elections in 2014?"
Post-Putsch Fiji Journalism Training Questioned
AUT journalist professor David Robie may have a vested interest* in his assessment of Fiji's media courses funded by AusAID, but there can be no question that Fiji media, at least, needs to get its act togther. As Robie says on Cafe Pacific some courses are "merely producing fodder for industry at a time when critical, independent journalism needs to be nurtured more than ever."
*David Robie is the founding figure in Pacific university journalism training -- in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Auckland.
2 comments:
The Fiji Times article referred to appears to be factually correct and balanced, listing all the sectors of the economy that are subject to the new wage increase and noting that ‘just’ the garment and textile sector are struggling to cope.
FT’s use of the phrase ‘just’ lends a balance to the article that you claim to be lacking by virtue of the headline, choice of interviewee and selective reason given for employers struggling.
This criticism appears to be unjust since the article was written with the effect of the wage increase on the employer as its subject, therefore the selection of Mr Seeto as FEF president was sensible. In turn, Mr Seeto’s comments were reasonable noting, as he did, that ‘just’ (that word again) the two sectors were experiencing difficulty.
In fact, your criticism of the article is profoundly disturbing for the following reasons:
1) The article was written, vetted by a censor and published under the most draconian censorship regulations this country has experienced outside of wartime. Your criticism could easily lead to a presumption that you would prefer to see the censorship regulations strengthened still further, rather than relaxed.
2) Immediately adjacent your criticism is a survey enquiring of the reader if they feel Fiji’s military censorship should be lifted. Present results indicate that 93% of respondents feel the censorship should be lifted immediately with about a quarter preferring for a few continued restrictions.
Presumably its anonymous nature means the survey is free of the racial bias that you mentioned in an earlier article. From comments posted previously it would appear that sympathies of your readers (and presumably survey respondents) range across the broad spectrum from pro- to anti-coup.
Therefore your comment, underlined and emphasised
“How on earth can reasonable people urge the Government to relax media restrictions when it's almost a "given" that the Fiji Times will peck away with a succession of not so subtle anti-government articles like this!”
is, not to put too fine a point on it, ignorant - since it ignores the results of your own survey. Alternatively, if not ignoring the results, you then presumably feel that most of the respondents are unreasonable. That would be worse since it would display crass insensitivity, all the more unfortunate coming as it might from someone who has usually displayed a thoughtful insight into the ramifications of this coup.
The possibility that many in Fiji are able to read and think critically seems to have escaped you and I feel that you have done yourself no favours in this particular instance.
Croz, mate. Get real! Despite your obvious admiration for David Robie's work, why did you ever expect the media to be objective, balanced and fair? These guys make money out of "news" - aka controversy.
Seems to me that your knickers are showing when you expect the media (which is, as you make us aware, constrained by the PER) to do anything but pick away at the regime which has imposed these restrictions! Where, ever, does the media care what is right (with apologies to M. Robie - bien sur) versus what will generate revenues?
Realism forever!
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