(PINA/IFEX) – Fears of the Fiji Islands governmentâs attempts to influence the news media before the May general elections have grown following a please-explain request to Fiji Television. According to “The Fiji Times” of 3 March 1999 (local time), the Prime Minister’s Office has asked the Ministry of Information to seek clarification from Fiji Television […]
(PINA/IFEX) – Fears of the Fiji Islands governmentâs attempts to
influence the news media before the May general elections have grown
following a please-explain request to Fiji Television. According to “The
Fiji Times” of 3 March 1999 (local time), the Prime Minister’s Office
has asked the Ministry of Information to seek clarification from Fiji
Television about its policy on political interviews. Government
ministers were concerned over an interview Fiji Television aired on 28
February with recently retired military forces commander and aspiring
politician Ratu Epeli Ganilau, the newspaper said.
**Updates IFEX alerts of 11 February, 10 February and 9 February 1999**
Secretary to Cabinet Jioji Kotobalavu said it would have been fair if
Fiji Television aired Ganilau’s comments about his leaving the army, and
not his comments on his political aspirations. Kotobalavu said political
parties and individual politicians should be treated equally by the
nation’s only television station. Ganilau, who comes from an influential
chiefly family, said he left the army to stand as an election candidate
for an indigenous Fijian Christian party, Vaetokani ni Lewenivanua
Vakarisito. This party is opposing the Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni
Taukei-led government of Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, also a former
army commander and leader of two 1987 coups.
Fiji Television chief executive Peter Wilson said the interview was a
normal news and current affairs item. “Any person we think is newsworthy
to be interviewed is invited,” he told “The Fiji Times.” Rabuka has been
invited for next week, he said.
In an editorial comment headlined “Hands Off Fiji TV,” “The Fiji Times”
said: “The reaction of the Prime Minister’s Office to the Ratu Epeli
interview is worrying for a range of reasons. We’ve heard the pious
assurances that the government will not use its media ownership as an
election tool. But it is too much to expect that a government -any
government- facing a difficult election will not succumb to the
temptation to use its media muscle to enhance its chances. And this
government’s media muscle is powerful indeed.
“It owns radio stations, it can control television by decree – and now
it controls a daily newspaper by virtue of the fact that it outbid a
local commercial consortium on the verge of purchasing it. We still
don’t know why. And we still don’t know why the Government plans to
plough millions more in taxpayers’ hard-earned funds into that same
newspaper at a time when the consortium it outbid seems determined to
launch a daily of its own.”
“On top of that we have the prime minister’s staff whining about a TV
editorial decision. Where are we going here? One outcome is certain. If
the government continues to give the impression that it intends to
harness -or even seek to influence through ownership- its own news
media, it will devalue those assets into oblivion. And it won’t
influence one voter.”
Background Information
On 10 February 1999, Fiji Islands Finance Minister Jim Ah Koy announced
the government had become the main shareholder in the English-language
“Daily Post” and its Fijian-language weekly “Na Volasiga.” It bought a
forty four percent share previously held by the Fiji Development Bank.
The move came just three months before the country’s first general
elections under a new constitution replacing one imposed after two 1987
military coups. The government’s move has already been condemned by PINA
and opposition political parties.
The Fiji Islands returned to elected government in 1992, and its news
media are again regarded as among the most free and diverse in the
Pacific Islands. There are independent newspapers, magazines, and
broadcast stations. While the government has also had strong involvement
in ownership of the broadcast media, the print media had until now been
independent. The other daily newspaper, the English-language “The Fiji
Times,” is part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and also publishes
the Fijian-language weekly “Nai Lalakai” and the Hindi weekly “Shanti
Dut.”
