REGION: Politicians target Pacific media for regulation

Politicians across the small island nations of the Pacific have begun to target local media organisations for criticism and new regulation, signs that press freedom gained in recent years could be curtailed

Pacific Media Watch
Thursday, March 25, 2004

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IPS/Pacific Media Watch): Politicians across the small island nations of the Pacific have begun to target local media organisations for criticism and new regulation, signs that press freedom gained in recent years could be curtailed.

Some of the criticism is not without reason, such as when Fiji's television network is criticised for broadcasting very little local content. But media practitioners have assailed attempts by the Cook Islands and Tonga to use new legislation to regulate the media as a device to stifle freedom of expression.

Local media executives say that it is not a bad idea to have proper regulations to guide the media, if this legislation is drafted in consultation with the media
organisations.

The Cook Islands Media Association, for example, has given a cautious welcome to the government's proposal to create a media watchdog. Its president, Flo Syme-Buchanan, said that if it was done properly, the idea of a media council was a good one. But she said she was upset that the government had not approached the media to ask for their views before making the announcement.

The Cook Islands News, in an editorial this month, criticised the proposed media council as a structure devised by the government to stop newspapers from investigating and criticising it.

"It has been politicians that have demanded regulatory control of the media," the newspaper said.

"We know that when a Media Council was established back in the mid-1990s, it was politicians that dominated the submissions in lodging complaints."

The Cook Islands government has argued, however, that an independent media council is the only way to deal with what it described as widespread concerns about unacceptable standards and abuse of power by the country's three privately owned weeklies.

At a Commonwealth Broadcasters Association (CBA) meeting in Nadi last month, Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase attacked the local media, suggesting that journalists were out of touch with what was happening in the country.

He also criticised Fiji television for lack of local programming. He has since argued for regulation of media content.

Qarase criticised privately-owned Fiji TV, the only television station in the country, as a "rushing deluge of Westernisation" and said Fijian journalists were unable to get the facts right.

"I do not mean getting it right from a politician's standpoint," he said. "I am speaking of the basis of reporting the facts, ensuring balance and placing stories in an accurate context."

Francis Herman, chief executive of the Fiji Broadcasting Association, said that if the government is trying to raise industry standards and retain experienced journalists, then they should be funding public broadcasting, not cutting it.

But Fijian independent television producer James Bhagwan, who received the Commonwealth Vision Award for 2003 at the conference, welcomed the prime minister's comments about local content.

Saying that only 35 percent of programmes on Fiji TV are local, he added that the national broadcaster has a responsibility "to make programs that are relevant to the people watching at home".

Fijian publisher Yashwant Gaunder said the government was generally tolerant of the media.

"From time to time, there are comments against the media and talk of media bills and media laws but these seem more like just threats to ensure the media stay in line," he said.

But in Tonga, media practitioners see such action differently. Last month, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) protested to the Tongan government that new media regulations would be used to clamp down on the independent press.

Under a law enacted last year, newspaper publishers and vendors must obtain licences to distribute their publications in the country.

The issue came to a head in February, when Tongan democracy activist Alani Taione was arrested in Tonga.

He was visiting the country for his father's funeral and, while there, distributed copies of the banned newspaper Taimi 'o Tonga (Times of Tonga).

The Tongan government last year had banned the newspaper, produced by Auckland-based Tongan publisher Kalafi Moala, for publishing accusations of government corruption. The ban was later overturned by the country's Supreme Court.

The government then introduced the new media licensing legislation and refused to grant Taimi 'o Tonga a licence.

The IFJ, in protesting the moves, said that such legislation was designed to curb independent media and called upon the Tongan government to repeal the law.

Meanwhile, the owner of the Cook Islands' only broadcasting network and its three newspapers, George Pitt of Elijah Communications, said that his country was also setting up a media council and introducing licensing legislation to control the media.

"They think if they can take our licence away, or do something in that area, that will punish us for what we write in the newspapers," he told Radio New Zealand.

But, speaking on Radio Australia, Fiji Media Council chairman Daryl Tarte said that having a national broadcasting standards authority is not a bad idea and does not impinge on the freedom of expression.

"It might bring some order into the type of programmes that are being broadcast," he said.

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Date Posted: 3/25/2004