(PINA/IFEX) – Fiji’s Assistant Minister for Information has said that a Fiji Media Council, to be set up under new media legislation, will be more regulatory than the present body set up by the Fiji news media. According to “The Fiji Times” of 7 August 1998, the Assistant Minister, Ratu Josefa Dimuri, said the present […]
(PINA/IFEX) – Fiji’s Assistant Minister for Information has said that a Fiji
Media Council, to be set up under new media legislation, will be more
regulatory than the present body set up by the Fiji news media. According to
“The Fiji Times” of 7 August 1998, the Assistant Minister, Ratu Josefa
Dimuri, said the present Fiji Media Council is one-sided. He said this is
because it does not represent a wide cross-section of the community. The new
council will administer and implement professional codes of practice for
editorial standards and advertising, said Dimuri, a former journalist. It
would be in accordance with freedom of expression guarantees in the 1997
Constitution, he said. He added that the council would not include
Government representatives.
Fiji’s news media say that the present Fiji Media Council, which was
developed from the former Fiji News Council, meets the recommendations made
in a report by consultants from The Thomson Foundation, of Britain. The
consultants reviewed Fiji’s media legislation at the request of the
Government. The Fiji Media Council, a PINA member, comprises representatives
of Fiji’s news media organisations plus an equal number of prominent public
members drawn from the country’s various communities. It acts as a
self-regulatory body for the local news media and also promotes freedom of
expression and information, ethics and professional standards. A committee
which hears complaints against the news media comprises three prominent
non-media members. Council secretary Bob Pratt told “The Fiji Times” that
the council has a balance of members and does represent a cross-section of
the community.
Background Information
On 29 January 1998, the Government said the Cabinet (Government ministers)
had approved the drawing up of new media laws which include an independent
media regulatory council but exclude suggestions for licensing newspapers
and magazines. The Press Correction Act, introduced in the British colonial
era, was also to be scrapped. Cabinet had accepted most of the
recommendations of a report by Thomson Foundation
consultants who reviewed the media laws in late 1996. The consultants
recommended against licensing, but suggested the expansion of the then Fiji
News Council (see IFEX alerts of 30 January 1998 and 9 December 1997).
On 30 January 1998, PINA welcomed the Government’s endorsement of most of
the Thomson Foundation Report, and in particular the rejection of licensing
of the print media and replacement of the Press Correction Act. PINA said
the then Fiji News Council had already put in place many recommendations in
the Thomson Foundation Report.
In special sittings of Fiji’s House of Representatives and Senate ending on
16 July 1998, an Emergency Powers Act 1998 was passed despite concern from
the news media, trade unions, community activists and some Opposition
parliamentarians (see IFEX alerts of 17, 13, 9 and 7 July 1998). The act
includes a section enabling the introduction of regulations for “censorship
and the control of and suppression of publications, writings, maps, plans,
photographs, communications and means of communications.”
Under an existing Parliamentary Powers and Privileges Act, Fiji’s main daily
newspaper, “The Fiji Times”, has faced a number of actions against its
reporting by both the elected House of Representatives and the appointed
Senate (see IFEX alert of 8 June 1998, and others).
