Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama ... relaxed laws for 2012. Photo: Graham Davis / Grubsheet

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Pacific Media Watch

Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has announced an end to emergency laws that have been in place in the country since 2009, ABC News reports.

In his New Year’s address to the nation, Commodore Bainimarama said the Public Emergency Regulations would end from Saturday.

The regulations give police and the military extended powers, censor the media, and restrict public assembly. Read more »

Press Release – Pacific Media Watch

As Pacific correspondent Sean Dorney reports, those who oppose Bainimarama are not allowed any media coverage in Fiji. SD: If you lived in Fiji and your only source of information was a single local national newspaper, the Fiji Sun , you would soon … Read more »

Front page of the latest Wansolwara ... the University of the South Pacific student journalists' award-winning newspaper after a facelift. Photo: PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Koila Valemei in Suva

The news media has an important role to play in uniting a fractured nation such as Fiji, says economist and academic Dr Biman Prasad.

“Media needs to become a force for unity – not disunity as we have sometimes seen in the past,” he said, speaking at a recent Lions Club dinner.

Dr Prasad stressed that a real start to a stronger nation could only be achieved once media censorship and the public emergency regulations were lifted. Read more »

Pacific Scoop:
Analysis – By Professor Crosbie Walsh

Fiji’s Public Emergency Regulations (or the PER as they are generally known) were introduced in April 2009 and have been extended – by Presidential decree – at three-monthly intervals ever since.

I have argued previously for all sides on the PER issue, saying that PER should be retained if there are specific, immediate threats against public order and government; lifted, at least in part, if there are only general threats; and lifted completely if the threats are unlikely to amount to anything.

A military government by inclination is likely to find control mechanisms convenient, but a military government committed to essential reforms, dialogue, constitutional and electoral reforms and elections in 2014 is not credible if restrictions are maintained without proper cause. Read more »

Fugitive colonel Ratu Tevita Mara ... happier days in the military before he took refuge in Tonga. Photo: Fijivillage.com

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Alex Perrottet

While Fiji and Tonga are in a diplomatic face-off over the defection of Lieutenant-Colonel Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba Mara, Fiji journalists have been weaving in and around government control to bring the story to the world.

The reporting of the event was first picked up in New Zealand by Fairfax’s Stuff.co.nz and Pacific Scoop last Saturday.

But for a country that has draconian censorship laws, some of Fiji’s own news media have deftly overcome some tricky challenges. Read more »

Mahendra Motibhai Patel: New owner of Murdoch's News Ltd title The Fiji Times. Photo: David Robie/PMC

A media decree that forced Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd to sell The Fiji Times to a local company has bitterly divided media commentators.

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Siobhan Keogh

The headlines in New Zealand were sensational. Several newspapers called it a “crackdown on media freedom” in Fiji.

News Ltd, a company owned by the biggest media mogul the world has ever seen, was being forced by a Fiji government decree to sell at least 90 percent of the newspaper to locals.

The message was clear – foreign interests were to get out of the Fiji media. Read more »

Tongan broadcaster and publisher Kalafi Moala in an interview at the PIMA 2010 conference. Photo: Kim Bowden/PMC

The Pacific Islands Media Association held its annual conference on Friday at AUT University. While many of the who’s who of Pacific media were present, it was a new generation of media students and people who caught the eye.

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Alex Perrottet

Iulia Leilua spoke of her 83-year-old father, an avid media consumer and the changes that have occurred in his lifetime. She speculated on what might change in another 83 years, concluding that the most important thing for Pacific journalists was “to serve”.

“We need to be bold,” she said. “We need to stick together and we need to be local.” Read more »

Kalafi Moala, keynote speaker at Pacific Islands Media Association (PIMA) conference, warned that journalists must not take freedom of expression for granted. (Photo: Kim Bowden/PMC.)

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Kim Bowden

Press freedom in the Pacific Islands is under constant threat, says an industry stalwart, but the media fraternity in the South Pacific’s biggest nations take the right for granted.

Kalafi Moala, vice-chair of the Pacific’s new media freedom group PasiMA, delivered the keynote speech at today’s 2010 Pacific Islands Media Association (PIMA) conference in Auckland.

He told the New Zealand journalists present, they take freedom of the press for granted, a luxury that is not an option for Pacific colleagues. Read more »

The Fiji media panel at the Oceans, Islands and Skies conference in Suva: Alumeci Nakeke (from left), USP head of journalism Shailendra Singh, Dawn Gibson and Ricardo Morris. Photo: David Robie/PMC

Pacific Scoop
Report – By Pacific Media Watch in Suva

Three editors and journalists today welcomed news of the sale of the Fiji Times to a local Fiji business as good for environmental journalism reporting in the region.

But they reserved judgment on the future independence of the newspaper under future owners Motibhai. Read more »

A censored Fiji Times immediately after abrogation of the constitution in April 2009: Now a new decree controls the media. Photo: PMC/File

Time is running out for the 141-year-old influential newspaper as it has only a month to divest 90 percent of its Australian-ownership – or be forced to close down.

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Shannon Gillies

Military dictatorship in Fiji has thrown the survival of the Pacific’s longest running English-language daily newspaper in jeopardy.

The Fiji Times has served its host nation since it was founded in Levuka in 1869 – 141 years ago. Read more »