Professor Biman Prasad
SUVA (The Fiji Times/Pacific Media Watch): OPINION: Wednesday's (July 15, 2015) editorial comment by Fiji Sun managing editor (news) Jyoti Pratibha titled "So what's your real agenda, Prasad and Narsey") expanded the boundaries of gutter level journalism.
The editorial comment was in response to a motion moved by me in Parliament on Friday, July 10, 2015.
It was as follows: "That Parliament agrees that the Minister for Communication through Cabinet immediately review the decision of exclusivity in terms of advertising in one newspaper in conformity to Sections 17, 25, 26 & 32 of the Constitution."
The motion was defeated 26-17 because of the usual block voting by the government which has numerical superiority. The debate was extensively covered by the mainstream media. But not the Fiji Sun. All the newspaper did on Saturday July 11 was run a small story highlighting the Attorney-General's response in Parliament, but not the contents of the motion.
On Tuesday July 14, the newspaper's coconut wireless column contained a snapshot of what was coming on Wednesday. In a typical example of Fiji Sun journalism, I was described as a "darling of The Fiji Times who was out of touch with the commercial world".
Their journalism
Pratibha had the audacity to say exclusivity or the fact that government advertised only in the Fiji Sun was a commercial decision and that my point about the human rights of people being breached was "rhetoric and in reality a really self-serving Opposition political agenda".
Nothing can be further from the truth. The basic principle underpinning an editorial comment is a major news story that a newspaper prints. An editorial either supports a policy, points out its flaws, makes suggestions or acts as a critique. But in this case, the Fiji Sun did not print a single word of my motion or the debate.
Surely, the motion was newsworthy because the newspaper decided to do an editorial arising out of a one-sided story it printed on July 11. So much for ethics, balance and its theme of "a good newspaper talking to itself".
NFP's media position
The National Federation Party and I are not flying the flag for The Fiji Times.
There are many examples of NFP disagreeing with The Fiji Times and criticising the newspaper throughout the party's 52 years of existence. Indeed in the mid 1960s as the party waged a peaceful political struggle for Fiji's Independence and the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR), The Fiji Times deliberately did not print views expressed by the party.
So much so that it led to a founding member and stalwart of the NFP, the late James Madhavan to say, "(The) Fiji Times is a poison that we have to drink every morning".
Similarly, the editorial policy of the Fiji Sun, which has openly expressed its support for government, starting on Saturday April 11, 2009 through its editorial (and re-iterated during the World Media Freedom Day panel discussion at USP in 2014), condoning the abrogation of the 1997 Constitution, overthrow of the Fiji Court of Appeal ruling of April 9, 2009 (which ruled the coup of December 5, 2006 and the then interim military government were illegal and for general election to be held by August 2009), the sacking of the judiciary, and imposition of the Public Emergency Regulations and media censorship, is fast becoming a poison that we have to drink every morning.
The Fiji Sun is allowing only a single point of view to prevail. Any statement against the government, even information revealed during parliamentary standing committee hearings, which is unfavourable to government is not printed.
The most recent example of this is the non-reporting of queries in the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday, July 16.
We do deserve a chance to express our viewpoint.
Unfortunately, the Fiji Sun, apart from giving political parties a weekly column on Saturdays in the lead-up to the 2014 general election, has not shown any change of heart of resorting to fair, accurate and ethical journalism practices even after the election.
Commercial interest?
My motion was self-explanatory and logical. But the Fiji Sun and Pratibha describe it as a "self-serving agenda". And she goes on to say where was I when the now defunct Daily Post newspaper was struggling and jobs were being affected. Instead of trying to blame Professor Narsey and me, she should ask her colleague Nemani Delaibatiki who served as editor of the Daily Post in the 1990s and is well appraised with the commercial operations of that newspaper.
Shares in the Daily Post were even purchased by the then SVT government. No government should be running a newspaper.
At the end of the day, the editorial, operational and commercial decisions of the management of Daily Post failed, leading to its closure in 2010. Similarly, in Fiji Sun's case, Pratibha confirms in her editorial that being pro-government is a sound commercial decision. And that makes it morally and ethically right for government to predominantly advertise in the newspaper.
What nonsense! God forbid that Fiji Sun does not suffer the same fate as the Daily Post because of editorial bias and shirking of journalism ethics is the cornerstone of the newspaper, then it will be doomed unless Fiji Sun thinks FijiFirst will be in government in perpetuity.
Perception
Pratibha is also giving credibility to perceptions that the fact that a leading executive of the owners of the Fiji Sun is either the chairman or a member of important boards of statutory organisations and a Constitutional Office is confirmation of the newspaper's loyalty to the government, thereby rewarding it with quite substantial advertising.
This perception is unfairly tarnishing the image and reputation of both the Fiji Sun and the leading executive.
And damage to the newspaper's reputation is only being increased by a display of blatant bias and disregard of ethical journalism displayed by the newspaper's managing editor (news) through her editorial comment.
Wrong
Pratibha is also wrong in saying for the first time Fiji has two commercially viable and vibrant newspapers (of course one is being pumped indirectly with taxpayer's funds used to pay for intensive advertising). She forgets about the Fiji Sun, the bold and ethical newspaper forced to close down after the second military coup of September 25, 1987.
Again she should ask her colleagues Delaibatiki and Lomas whether a second newspaper (the Fiji Sun), which started operations in the 1970s, depended on government advertising revenue to survive commercially because of innovation and unbiased and impartial editorial policy that attracted commercial advertising and increased its readership.
Principles
If The Fiji Times was preferred as the newspaper for exclusive and lately predominant government advertising thereby denying the Fiji Sun, the NFP and I would have been equally vociferous in opposing the policy and highlighting why the constitutional rights of Fiji Sun and the people of Fiji are being breached.
We abide by our founding values and principles. We will never shirk them.
Professor Biman Prasad, a former economist at the University of the South Pacific, is the leader of the opposition National Federation Party. The views expressed are his and not of The Fiji Times.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
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