AUCKLAND: News Limited’s recent enforced sale of the Fiji Times to the Motibhai Group has led to an upheaval at Fiji’s oldest newspaper.
The doors of the Fiji Times have been getting a workout in the past week, and the most recent editorial change was predicted on Radio New Zealand’s Mediawatch programme by Dr David Robie last Sunday.
Dr Robie, director of AUT's University's Pacific Media Centre, told Jeremy Rose that he wouldn’t be surprised if there was a new editor at the Fiji Times before long.
“I would be surprised if he stays there for the longer term,” said Dr Robie, of editor Netani Rika, who has been at the paper since the 1980s.
“As the dust settles, they may well look at another editor who would probably be more in tune with what [newly appointed publisher] Dallas Swinstead is going to try and do.”
He described Rika as unpopular with the regime, "to put it mildly".
By Tuesday, Rika had resigned and there are reports that deputy editor Sophie Foster has taken "sudden leave".
Rika has been replaced by Sunday Times editor Fred Wesley as acting editor-in-chief.
The Fiji government’s Media Industry Development Decree, passed on June 28, forced the sale of the Fiji Times by regulating that no media organisation could be more than 10 percent foreign owned.
Dr Robie said the Fiji Times was “in a sense going back to the future.”
The new owner, Mahendra Motibhai Patel, previously served on the board of the Fiji Times as a non-executive director, and the new publisher, Dallas Swinstead, was the Fiji Times publisher from 1976 to 1980.
Innovative period
“During that period, he was quite an innovative publisher,” said Dr Robie.
“He, in fact, introduced a lot of new ideas that have become the benchmark at the Fiji Times.”
Dr Robie went on to say that Swinstead, originally from Melbourne, Australia, would take a pragmatic line with the regime.
“He is likely to take a more diplomatic approach to the regime than his immediate predecessors,” he said.
“But I certainly don’t think he is going to be kowtowing to the regime. He has made some quite strong comments since he has been appointed.”
During a recent interview, Swinstead was asked by Radio Australia's Geraldine Coutts whether he would “self-censor” in the case that the Fiji government gave a directive not to publish. Swinstead responded fairly clearly:
“Well, with respect to you, that is a pretty dumb question. Of course, I will. What's the point in having a newspaper shut down?” he said.
Swinstead went on to defend his pragmatic stance.
“I am tenacious, but I am a good mediator and a facilitator, and I will be trying to talk to people in government to lead them to understand how valuable a free and open press is,” he said.
“But look, it is a developing country with lots of problems and I am sympathetic to them and I am not angry about censorship or anything else. That's life.”
Listen to the Radio New Zealand interview here (22:10).
Alex Perrottet
