(o) Perhaps PNG's Independent Media Standards Committee Offers Some Pointers for Fiji

Remember earlier in the year when the media left readers with no alternative but to conclude the military and government were responsible for the fire bomb attacks on the homes of The Fiji Times editor and a security recruitment agent? That was when Fiji Media Council chairperson Daryl Tarte had this to say:

“The media in Fiji, just as in Australia, is entitled to be be partisan if they want to be. It’s probably more dangerous to be partisan in Fiji than it is in Australia but the fact is that I think most media in Fiji are trying to report as objectively and in a balanced way as they can. It is very dangerous for them not to do so. And the examples of the recent attacks on the editor of The Fiji Times is evidence of this.”

Government accused the media of bias, which it denied. But the only "evidence" about who conducted these crimes was that some men were seen running in the general direction of the military barracks (from Namadi Heights to Nabua), and in another attack, against Attar Singh, an army or farmer-type green hat (photo) was left at the front door of the crime scene!

I offered the opinion that the Government had nothing to gain from these attacks. They could, of course, have been conducted by junior soldiers on their own initiative -- or by Government opponents hoping the public, with some help from the media, would hold Government responsible. The green hat looked suspiciously like planted evidence.

In his statement Daryl Tarte seemed to be conceding the media reports were unbalanced (hence the attacks) but there's no doubt about who he thought responsible for the attacks, or whether he thought the media were entitled to be partisan if they chose.

Turn now to a new development in Papua New Guinea where such reporting would not be accepted, or excused.
Read more...

PNG's new Independent Media Standards Committee, which is independent of the professional Media Council, has members from varied backgrounds: a former assistant police commissioner; a former chief ombudsman; a church representative; an academic, and a former secretary of the National Executive Council. I presume appointments are made by Government. Such wide representation could suit Fiji.

Chairman John Toguata, the former police officer, said the media's responsibilities to communicate and educate should be practised with accuracy and sensitivity with balanced views of all parties to a story at all times. The Committee would protect freedom of expression -- and see that it is exercised with the greatest care, responsibility and accountability. The media's ethics code provided clear parameters which must be enforced by all media houses. The same ethical parameters would guide the IMSC - as the overall media watchdog - in upholding the integrity of reporting and information dissemination by journalists nationwide.

Note that the IMSC will only act when the "media houses" fail in their responsibilities. Then, to be effective, it will also need the power to impose sufficiently heavy penalties on wayward media to dissuade them from erring again. It could be that the absence of such powers allowed Fiji newspapers to be so -- partisan.
--- Based on The National.