MELBOURNE: The outgoing editor of the Fiji Times newspaper is concerned the country's journalists are losing their skills while working under the interim regime's strict censorship laws. Netani Rika has revealed he never considered toeing the interim government line, despite threats against himself and his family. Rika left the newspaper shortly after a newly-imposed ban on foreign-owned media forced it to change hands. He is now considering an offer by the Australian National University to come to Canberra and document his experience of media censorship under the military-ruled government.
Presenter: Geraldine Coutts
Speaker: Netani Rika, Fiji Times former editor-in-chief
RIKA: What I would say for the time being is that the Fiji Times found it was no longer able to continue with me as editor, it was just too difficult. And so I had to go.
COUTTS: And the difficulties are that you wanted to hold to the central tenets of journalism and that was present the facts as facts?
RIKA: The Fiji Times needs revenue that is not coming from government at the moment, and with me there it's very difficult for the government to do anything with the Fiji Times.
COUTTS: So that means that they're expecting that advertisers will come back to the Fiji Times after your departure?
RIKA: I believe that's what they think, yes.
COUTTS: Now it's also been reported that when Sophie Foster your deputy editor went in to find out the status of her future, she was told that yourself and her were targeted, and that the Motibhai group taking over were told that you and her needed to be targeted. Is that your understanding of the situation?
RIKA: I don't know what the Motibhai group decided about Sophie, but I do know that she has for a long time been targeted by the government. And that she's almost as popular as I am with the government I suppose.
COUTTS: Now while you were working then, Netani Rika, as editor of the Fiji Times, what was it like post the introduction of the media decree? What were your working lives like?
RIKA: I have to say it's probably the most hectic, tense plan my career as a journalist. Having to have more than the usual number of news articles ready to run just in case the censors decide they don't like something. So a tremendous amount of work had to be done by the people in the newsroom. Decisions kept changing, sometimes minute by minute from eight o'clock to ten o'clock.
COUTTS: Also on top of that for you were taken in for questioning and it was a pretty unpleasant circumstance sitting on the floor with a gun strapped to your interrogator's leg at your eye level. Your home's been bombed a number of times, you've been threatened a heap, so this is the way that you were working, the regime that you were working under. Did you at any time think (it was) too much, I'll just do as they want?
RIKA: It never crossed my mind, it never crossed my mind and I have to say that's because of the support from my family and also because of the support of the journalists on the paper, it sort of kept us going.
COUTTS: The Fiji interim regime is saying that they're going to hold elections in 2014. The headlines already in the Fiji Times are dog and cat stories and similar stories. If journalists for the next four years, especially if they've been trained, think that this is the way the media's going, what long term impact will this have on Fiji's media?
RIKA: I think the problem we see is that if and when democracy returns you will have a band of journalists who cannot ask questions. We've seen it already in Fiji. There's a huge danger here that we will have a breed of journalists unwilling, or unable, to ask the tough questions, and then whatever administration follows after this it will run roughshod over everyone, and expect people just to report whatever it is that they want said.
COUTTS: On that issue of people's rights, do you think that many people are noticing the changes in the media, like we've just noticed over the last couple of days where there's been truly dog and cat stories on the front pages, do you think that they're noticing that they're not actually getting information about the government or information about news generally?
RIKA: No I think people have noticed that, but it's probably not something you can sustain for a very long time.
COUTTS: What about you, Netani Rika, now that you've got an offer to come to Australia, what does that entail?
RIKA: The offer from the ANU to come and write about experiences over the last four years or so. I must say I need to submit a paper, an initial paper to them before anything further. Yeah, but basically we want to write about what's happened over the last four years, particularly in the areas of journalism and governance.
COUTTS: So it's a short term offer offered to you by the ANU? What about your long term future?
RIKA: My long term future is something I am considering, and I should know by the end of this week what it is that I'm going to do from the beginning of January until perhaps the next five years.
COUTTS: Does that involve leaving Fiji for that period of time?
RIKA: I think it will have to involve that, it's something that I'm thinking about and something I need to discuss with my family, but there is an option to leave Fiji, so yeah, it's something I've been forced into by circumstance. I never ever considered leaving, but having a family means that the time comes when you need to consider these things. And I'm considering it right now.
COUTTS: And has your head office of the newspaper offered you anything permanently, perhaps in Sydney?
RIKA: [laughs] What I will say is that News Limited has been of tremendous support to me and to my family, to my colleagues and I am really grateful for everything they have done and continue to do. - Radio Australia/Pacific Media Watch
Pacific Media Watch
