PAC Media
New Zealand Academic Blasts Fiji Media
Battle Plays Out on Websites and E-Mail Lists
A New Zealand academic specializing in Pacific issues and Fiji’s feisty and diverse independent news media are slugging it out in a heavyweight fight spanning the world.
In the red corner: New Zealander David Robie, University of the South Pacific’s journalism coordinator, weighing in with the support of his colleagues.
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In the blue corner: An irate Fiji news media. They are led by the region’s biggest daily newspaper, the region’s major locally-owned broadcasting group, and the head of the regional news media association.
The contest: Over a hotly disputed paper by Robie questioning Fiji media professionalism. Robie’s paper has been met locally with scorn, anger, allegations of bias and lack of research, and suggestions that Robie has no place in a seat of learning.
ROUND 1
Robie presents his paper — "Coup Coup Land: The Press and Putsch in Fiji" — at an Australian Journalism Education Association conference. His introduction says: "Some sectors of the media waged a bitter campaign against the administration and its rollback of privatization. In the early weeks of the insurrection, the media enjoyed an unusually close relationship with Speight and the hostage-takers, raising ethical questions. This paper examines the reportage of the putsch and the media controversy leading to the insurrection." Robie has been critical of Fiji news media at overseas conferences before.
But this has largely gone unnoticed in Fiji. The difference this time: Three young Fiji journalists, in Australia on a training program, are in his audience. The trio, Vijay Narayan (FM96 news editor), Imraz Iqbal (Fiji Television reporter), and Frederica Delailomaloma (Fiji Times reporter), all covered the Fiji coup and its aftermath. They are incensed by Robie’s allegations.
ROUND 2
The Fiji journalists return home and news of Robie’s paper spreads rapidly in Suva’s newsrooms. A copy is on the Journalism Education Association web site www.uq.edu.-au/jrn/jea/full-program.htm.
ROUND 3
PINA Nius Online — the daily regional news service of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) — carries a report on the Robie paper. It also gives details of where readers can read the more than 7,000-word document on the Internet. PINA Nius reports Robie’s paper:
• questions the professionalism of the Fiji news media.
• accuses some Fiji women journalists of using sexual relations to gain information from politicians.
• claims many Fiji journalists are young and untrained.
ROUND 4
Robie responds in an e-mail headlined "Author slams flawed PINA Nius Online report," claiming it is an example of the "distorted, unfair journalism and misrepresentation that part of my paper deals with…My paper addresses the poor relationship between the media and the coalition government as a factor in the up-heaval, and the subsequent coverage of the illegal regime and reconciliation." He puts it up on his own Web sites(www.asiapac.org.fj/cafepacific/-index.html). (Robie also soon puts a link to the ousted government’s Web- site, which praises his paper, saying: "The hard-hitting analysis is the first-ever independent analysis of the role the media played in the destruction of democracy in Fiji and the events leading to it.")
ROUND 5
One of Fiji’s three daily newspapers, the Daily Post, runs a report in which leading Fiji media executives Ken Clark (Fiji TV), William Parkinson (Communications Fiji Limited) and Alan Robinson (Fiji Times) criticize Robie’s paper. It is called inaccurate and an insult to Fiji journalists who covered the coup in very difficult and dangerous circumstances. Parkinson also cautions that the university journalism program needs to work with the local media industry and such comments will not help.
ROUND 6
Robie and his USP colleague Mark Hayes, an Australian, post comments on jeanet, an e-mail forum of the Journalism Education Association. "The irony is that the extraordinary reaction to it has highlighted the very hypocrisy and appalling journalism standards that I wrote about in the paper," he says. "Media freedom in Fiji, it seems, remains only alive and well among some media executives who are happy with the status quo."
ROUND 7
Parkinson, a Fiji journalist who founded and runs the region’s biggest independent radio network and is PINA’s president, responds to Robie and Hayes on jeanet. He says he and Fiji colleagues would "welcome a well-researched and balanced critique of the performance of the media in Fiji over the past two years. What we do object to is when an academic chooses to publish and present a work claiming to be an analysis of the media’s performance...that in fact is a poorly-researched diatribe…"
On the performance of Fiji’s journalists, Parkinson says: “In general, the media through this period handled the situation with extreme professionalism and very real bravery.”
ROUND 8
Robie responds: "These attacks by Fiji radio businessman William Parkinson and the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) on my personal integrity and the credibility of the USP program are dishonest and offensive. Let the facts and my argument in the JEA conference paper ... speak for themselves."
ROUND 9
Fiji Times publisher Robinson and editor-in-chief Russell Hunter meet with USP Vice-Chancellor Esekia Solofa. They present a formal complaint about Robie’s paper, and a detailed rebuttal to it. They report that over the term of the Chaudhry government The Fiji Times ran 54 comments and opinion pieces backing the government and 52 criticizing it. Robinson says: "Mr. Robie has completely ignored the basic principles of good journalism. He has failed to check ANY facts and he has failed to seek any form of balance in his determination to vilify this newspaper before an audience of journalism academics.
"It is deeply worrying to us that Mr. Robie is charged with the training of journalists… The head of your journalism program has failed to carry out even the most cursory research, favoring instead, the opinions of those who will support his preconceived views. Mr. Robie should have no place in a seat of learning such as USP."
ROUND 10
Robie responds: "I am disappointed at the bullying tactics and the hypocrisy of the Fiji Times...It is unfortunate that a newspaper that claims to support free speech and media freedom cannot find a journalistic way to debate the issues. Trying to gag me will not make the issues go away. Many individual journalists, diplomats and aid officials are among people who have personally complimented me on making public the issues."
ROUND 11
Robie posts on jeanet, the Commonwealth editors’ forum and his own Web sites, a letter from the president of the USP academic staff association, Biman Prasad, to the Vice Chancellor. Prasad alleges a media campaign to discredit Robie and USP’s journalism program. Prasad says the university’s journalism program has won "widespread acclaim under Mr. Robie’s leadership. We believe that Mr. Robie is only doing his work as an academic and it becomes the university’s responsibility to defend him and the program from unnecessary comments from some elements of the media."
ROUND 12
Radio Australia and Robie’s websites report the USP academic staff association alleges several Fiji news organizations are waging an orchestrated campaign against Robie. Spokesperson Scott MacWilliam says the issue is one of academic freedom.
ROUND 13
Fiji Times editor-in-chief Hunter responds to the academic freedom argument: "As usual David Robie marshals his forces when under attack in order to divert attention from the main issue. His academic freedom is not under attack here. Indeed, readers may recall that The Fiji Times…published an editorial strongly supporting Mr. Robie’s right to carry out research and express opinions.
"What is under attack is his academic competence as a result of his JEA paper which arrived at bogus conclusions on the basis of no research whatsoever."
