(PINA/IFEX) – Reporting on the American Pacific Islands Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas by mainland United States of America (USA) news media has again been attacked. Northern Marianas Governor Pedro Tenorio says the mainland media are hurting efforts to attract foreign investors to the islands, the regional news agency Pacnews reported on 2 June 1999. […]
(PINA/IFEX) – Reporting on the American Pacific Islands Commonwealth of the
Northern Marianas by mainland United States of America (USA) news media has
again been attacked. Northern Marianas Governor Pedro Tenorio says the
mainland media are hurting efforts to attract foreign investors to the
islands, the regional news agency Pacnews reported on 2 June 1999.
**Updates IFEX alert of 22 February 1999**
Pacnews quoted Governor Tenorio as saying an American Broadcasting
Corporation (ABC) 20/20 programme crew went to the islands to gather
information which would better serve the programme’s intentions at the
expense of objectivity. “I was hoping they would be more objective on the
(prostitution and sweatshop) issues. However, they just have one purpose and
their purpose is to videotape what they want to show on national
television and listen to what they want to hear,” Tenorio said. He said the
20/20 crew did not even bother to inquire about the Commonwealth
Government’s reform efforts.
“It would be more appropriate if they can report what we have done and what
we have been doing. Unfortunately, they decided not to do so. There’s
nothing we can do about it,” Pacnews quoted him as saying.
Background Information
A Northern Marianas House of Representatives committee recommended taking
“no further action” on a plan to call for a public boycott of the
“Washington Post” newspaper and “Reader’s Digest” magazine. The Northern
Marianas is a chain of seventeen self-governing islands in the North Pacific
that is in union with the USA.
According to the “Marianas Variety and News” of 11 February, the House
Committee on Health, Education, and Welfare discussed a resolution urging a
boycott of publications that carry “negative” articles about the Northern
Marianas “without supporting evidence and substantiated reporting.” It
specifically cited the “Washington Post” and “Reader’s
Digest”. In its report, the committee said that although the resolution is
“well intentioned”, it would not help diplomatically to show that the
Northern Marianas is not what these publications portray it as.
The USA occupied the Japanese-ruled Northern Marianas in World War Two.
After the war, the islands became part of the United States Trust Territory
of the Pacific Islands. In 1975, the people voted to become a commonwealth
of the USA rather than an independent nation.
According to the regional news magazine “Islands Business”, the islands are
heavily reliant on Asian tourists and a mainly mainland Chinese-controlled
garment industry set up to take advantage of access Marianas products have
to the USA market. But “Islands Business” said many garment factories are
criticised as being sweatshops using and
abusing workers imported from China and the Philippines. It said USA federal
authorities are now insisting the factories “clean up their act” and pay
minimum wages specified by law. The situation has recently been highlighted
in mainland USA news media.
