Dear Croz Walsh
It was interesting reading the different reports about Fiji Remembrance Day yesterday. The Fiji Times heading “Oz, NZ, Bainimarama, no show at dawn service” implies something very different to what is reported on the Fijilive website. “Politics aside: Aust, NZ join Fiji celebration.”
Fijilive says that Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama did not attend the service as he has left for a two week tour of Rome and Brussels (see below). Fiji Times did not report this fact so what is the truth? Which media organisation is reporting truthfully?
Fiji Sun reports that Mr Bainimarama left the country last night for a two-day tour to Rome and one week tour of Brussels to meet the European Commission (Official clarifies Rome trip.)
So is the Fiji Times mischief making or deliberately leaving out some of the facts to make Frank Bainimarama look as if he doesn’t care about Remembrance Day?
Another Fiji Times report in the same issue by reporter Jone Luvenitoga states:
New Zealand and Australian representatives were notably absent, as well as army commander Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama.
Acting Australian High Commissioner, Sarah Roberts, and New Zealand’s Acting Head of Mission, Cecilia Warren, joined close to 100 Fiji ex-servicemen and members of the public in the celebration at Ratu Sukuna Park.
What’s more, the two reports within the Fiji Times contradict each other and the Fijilive report is a very different account so which one is true?
Is Fiji Times manipulating the news because they have the pip with Bainimarama’s government or are they telling a truthful account of Remembrance Day?
How do we here in New Zealand know which report is truthful?
“White Frangipani”
10 comments:
Glad to see people are finally waking up to the nonsense that is the Fiji Times, a gaggle of ludicrous poseurs who cast themselves as crusaders for the truth to camouflage some of the worst journalism in the region.
Can anyone show me a Fiji Times "investigation" in recent years than is any better than the efforts of first year journalism students in the darkest corners of the third world?
You get no sense of the real Fiji and that's because it's a newsroom crammed with mediocrities who are living, breathing proof of the old adage that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
The editor spends more time out of the country receiving ludicrous awards for simply doing his job than trying to lift the abysmal standards of journalism he presides over.
And his publisher, an angry Englishwoman sent from the Murdoch gulag in Sydney, spends her time shrilly defending the indefensible and presiding over the long, slow decline of a national institution.
Since 1869, a series of great names - Griffiths, Alport Baker, Usher - gave Fiji a paper that was the country's pride and boxed well above its weight.
Now, it's a miserable little rag, consumed with his own self importance, flaying in the breeze and constantly betraying the trust and expectations of its readers.
I have before me the FT's centenary edition of 1969, the story of Fiji stretching back a century and an exemplary piece of history and journalism.
Forty years on, the paper is hard pressed to provide enough substance and depth to perform even its secondary role in those glorious times, of wiping the arses of successive generations of devoted readers.
Nowadays, the bloody Fiji Times is thin enough to stick your finger through in every sense.
It's common knowledge in Suva that the Fiji Times is the one reason the public emergency regulations are still in place.
The regime wants to pull its censors out of newsrooms but doesn't think the Fiji Times can be trusted to behave itself.
This story doesn't help, the suggestion that Frank was in town and didn't bother to turn up to Remembrance Day when the truth was he was heading for Europe.
As the government sees it, the rest of the media gets on with the job but Netani Rika and his team just can't help themselves and will start misbehaving if it pulls the censors out.
You could say the Fiji Times has had arrested development pretty much from the day Frank took over. Some of this is understandable when two publishers have been expelled and people like Rika have had their homes attacked.
But you have to ask why the paper decided to just stop reporting anything to do with the regime no matter how important. Even for the sake of its readers, this policy has to change but those stories also have to be accurate and balanced.
I don't think anything can change now until Netani Rika goes and the paper wipes the slate clean. It's a shame in many ways but he's too identified now as an opponent of the regime to go on. He's a smart guy and could easily be given a job in Murdoch's Australian operations.
Fiji Times was reporing on he dawn service that Aus and NZ didn't attend.
The Sun reported on the Sukuna park service.
Thank goodness that we are finally waking up: The Devil is Within! The skulduggery is in the detail (or the lack of detail). This had been suspected and then recognised incrementally in the past seven years. Measure the time when conflicts of interest first became more than apparent by alleged regular payments of Slush Fund Money to a certain political party on a start-up and annual basis. Who allowed such compromising acts to occur? Who sanctioned it? Who accounted for it? What connection did this have to a former Think Tank and all who populated it? This is where the rot set in. And no one chose to blow a whistle on it? Not one investigative reporter took it up even in the competition? Not in the Fiji Media Council? Come on!
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Fiji Times has been deliberately doing this for a number of years now. It didn't only happen this time during Bainimarama's reign, it was happening right after 1987 and beyond and was more prominent during the Fiji Labour Party reign in government.
The Fiji Times is an arm of the Australian Foreign Intelligence service. If its not, then its an arm of some foreign cabals of elite rich people like its owner Rupert Murdoch deliberately sanitizing news and information to suit their global agendas.
Those of us who are independent analyst following the developments in Fiji, we could tell or count on our fingertips which organization or entity in Fiji are covers for foreign inteligence services operating like legitimate businesses and NGOs in Fiji. I'm sure the intelligence arm of the RFMF knows this which was probably why they are coming down hard on these entities. If worse come to worse, my suggestion is close the Fiji Times down for good.
As Fiji develops through this trying times to create a truly democratic country where equal citizenry is paramount and wedge issues like race becomes irrelevant in national politics, we do not need these organizations who really represent someone else's agenda operating in Fiji. Get rid of them for good. Include the Fiji Women's Crisis Centre and maybe the Citizen Constitutional Forum in it.
If it was up to me, I do not have to think twice to close these organizations. I would do it right now.
I don't think shutting down the Fiji Times is a good idea because it will merely enrage Rupert Murdoch and he'll conduct a vendetta against Fiji on five continents.
The best thing to do is engage with its parent company in Australia and persuade them that the current stance is bad for business and bad for Fiji.
Readers have a lot more power than they think and if they were to stop buying the Fiji Times, it would soon change its attitude. The Sun has much more relevant news nowadays so buy it instead.
Fiji had a great history of media freedom before the latest temporary interruption and we want to keep it that way. So let's not talk about forcing the closure of individual outlets.
Getting them to understand that Fiji is a developing country with a sensitive racial balance and that they have certain responsibilities in the national interest is the better way to go.
The problem at the moment is all these gung ho media types like Rika and Sophie Foster think they have the same license in Fiji as they would working for other Murdoch papers like the Sydney Daily Telegraph or the London Sun. As if.
Exiling Netani Rika to some comfortable niche in Australia is far too easy an exit for a person and a supportive organisation that together have done so much damage over so many years not only to individuals and to entire families but also to the fabric of Fiji society and the economy as a whole. This man was found guilty of the worst contempt of the courts in Fiji's history. What else is he guilty of? He and all those behind him are potentially waiting to be charged, it might be suggested, for crimes against humanity. All those who encouraged and enabled the likes of Netani Rika might potentially face criminal charges in a Court of Law. They ought never to feel secure from this eventuality as it slowly dawns upon those who were exiled from their birth right under duress, obliged to leave all they held near and dear because of the orchestrated lies, manipulation and proselytizing of a seasoned mobster and his crew. What will it take to secure justice for all these exiled Fijians, their families and their progeny? More than sending Rika to a sinecure overseas. He should begin by enrolling himself in Law School. He might find this salutary.
It's about time the Fiji Times is taught a lesson. Closing them down is the best way to teach them a lesson. While Rupert Murdoch will use his vast network of international media to run a negative campaign against the current government leadership, in the end the truth will always win out.
The truth is that The Fiji Times is not serving the interest of Fiji. They MUST be closed down. I repeat, the Fiji Times MUST be closed down.
CLOSE DOWN THE FIJI TIMES PLEASE. I urge the government to revoke their business license.
RFMF, close this newspaper company for good.
I think PER should be relaxed and FT elevated to a high priority on the "cleanup campaign" list. Basically the proverbial "rotten potato" has to be disposed of. Why should other media outlets face restrainment due to the arrogance and inappropriate reporting by a lousy FT? I, like many others I know, have stopped reading FT. There really is nothing there of importance in relation to current affairs in Fiji. The fact that this govt is seen as a dictatorship by the owners of FT, might as well take full advantage of it.
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