Journalism Education Association of New Zealand (JEANZ) Conference,

David Robie

Journalism Coordinator and Senior Lecturer,

University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji Islands

Abstract: Covering Fiji's most vital general election since independence in 1970 amid post-Speight coup tension was a challenging assignment for the University of the South Pacific Journalism Programme. A new section on the Pacific Journalism Online website was created in July to cover the 2001 election and political aftermath over the next two months, ending with local angle coverage on the terrorist attacks in the United States. Wansolwara Online was designed to complement the five-year-old print edition of the training newspaper Wansolwara. In addition, many of the core group of students covering the election were not Fiji Islanders and did not speak either Fijian or Hindi. They were from other member countries of the 12-nation USP, and in one case from the Republic of the Maldives. This paper explores the cultural, educational and political challenges of media convergence at the region's most diverse journalism school.

What caused a furore were his comments on the slowness of committing coup leader George Speight and his co-conspirators to trial for treason and also on indigenous rights and responsibilities. Barrett's comments even raised the ire of the local police who believed that diplomats shouldn't comment on sensitive issues (Pasifik Nius, 2000). For anybody concerned with human rights or justice, and the media's pursuit of truth, it was a non issue, and the controversy was perhaps a little surprising.

Barrett referred to the High Court decision earlier that month declaring the interim government illegal. It was a reminder that there was still time to bring Fiji back on the "path of responsible nationhood", as he put it.

Barrett opined that what was difficult to accept in the post-Speight dialogue on indigenous rights was the "underlying assumption that those rights are pre-eminent over other more fundamental human rights.

Barrett argued that indigenous people should be respected and regarded as an indigenous person, but this respect must be earned not obtained on demand. Even if a special place in the polity of the nation, such as the Compact in Fiji's 1997 Constitution tries to incorporate, is provided, respect must still be earned.

In his speech, Barrett encapsulated the dilemmas of post-coup Fiji after the illegal attempts to remove a progressive Constitution that recognised the role of all communities in the modern state of Fiji. This paper seeks to examine journalism education and cultural conflict at the regional programme of the University of the South Pacific. Covering Fiji's most vital election since independence in 1970 amid post-Speight coup tension was a challenging assignment for the programme. This followed an earlier tough assignment in covering the coup itself, which earned the young USP students a brace of journalism awards (PANPA Bulletin, 2001).

Both assignments represented a convergence of news media and culture with online journalism being a central factor. Many of the core group of students covering the election were not Fiji Islanders and did not speak either Fijian or Hindi. They were from other member countries of the 12-nation USP, and in one case from the Republic of the Maldives.

This paper explores the cultural, educational and political challenges of media convergence at the region's most diverse journalism school.

The regional Pacific journalism programme was founded at the University of the South Pacific in 1994 (1). It was initially funded by the French Government as an aid project for four years, including the funding of a coordinator (former head of the French-language BBC service, François Turmel) and a lecturer. At the time that funding ended by the close of 1997, the programme had produced its first six graduates, all double major degree holders. However, only two of these graduates entered the news media.

Since then, the programme has produced forty three graduates – thirty seven double major BA degree holders and six with the new Diploma in Pacific Journalism. The programme has steadily moved toward media convergence with equal weight given on courses to print/online, radio and television journalism.

The programme's flagship publication is Wansolwara, a 16-page newspaper published online and on 80 gm bond paper and with four-colour editorial and advertising on the wrap around cover pages. This award-winning newspaper was founded by the journalism students in 1996 as a publication produced by volunteers and it became integrated in the journalism programme as a compulsory assessment component in 1998. Other comparable examples of problem-based learning (PBL) with an integrated newspaper are Uni Tavur at the University of Papua New Guinea, which covered the 1997 Sandline mercenary affair, and Spicol Daily at USP, and my experience with these publications is discussed elsewhere (Sheridan Burns, 1997; Robie, 1995; 1997; 2000).

The lecturer at the time of the founding of the USP newspaper, Philip Cass, recalls how it was first named:

Today the newspaper involves elements from several of the programme's nine dedicated journalism courses (in a 20-course degree). The print edition is integrated with the programme website, with both an online edition and archive and a parallel Wansolwara Online publication with separate stories. First year students in JN101 Introduction to Journalism and JN103 Media Law and Ethics become the reporters, filing several news stories for 20 per cent of their course assessment. Second year students in the JN201 Print and Online Journalism course become the subeditors, photographers and cartoonists (and often the key reporters) while the editor is usually drawn from specialist final year courses, JN303 Journalism Production or JN305 Special Topics in Journalism: Advanced Print and Online Media.

Journalism production students working on the newspaper hold weekly editorial conferences and develop editorial strategies that are more cooperative based than the heirarchical systems of mainstream newspapers. While they have clearly defined staff job descriptions and course outline objectives to fulfil, the editorial teams have a large degree of programme autonomy and flexibility (characteristic of the campus press) while also maintaining their independence from both the student representative body and the university authorities.

The saga of the newspaper's online edition on Pacific Journalism Online, which covered the 2000 Fiji coup intensely for ten days until it was closed by the USP administration on the day of declaration of martial law, 29 May 2000, has been well documented elsewhere (Robie, 2001b; 2001c).

Fiji has a highly developed media industry compared with most other Pacific countries. Until 2000, it had four major monthly or bimonthly news magazine groups, Islands Business International, Pacific Islands Monthly (Murdoch-owned), The Review and Fiji First (both locally owned). However, Fiji First faded from the public eye and PIM, the region's oldest and for many years the most influential magazine, announced its closure a month after the putsch. Islands Business was relaunched as the southern edition of Pacific Magazine in January 2000 after a merger with the Hawai'i-based publisher, Pacific Basin Communications. The three daily newspapers are the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fiji Times (circulation reportedly up to 55,000 during the Fiji crisis but usually around 32,000 week days) and the struggling Fiji government-owned Daily Post, with a third daily, The Sun, which was launched in September 1999. (The Sun is owned by a consortium of Indo-Fijian importers, C J Patel and Co Ltd and Vinod Patel and Co Ltd, and the flagship company of Fiji's caretaker régime, Fijian Holdings Ltd.) The two smaller dailies do not have independently audited sales, but are both believed to sell around 6000 copies a day. Broadcasters are Fiji Television Ltd, which has one free-to-air channel and two pay channels; the private Communications Fiji Ltd (FM96) radio group; and the state-owned Fiji Broadcasting Corporation. The Daily Post and The Review news magazine share a website, FijiLive.com, while The Fiji Times is hosted at FM96's Fiji Village.com website.

On 15 May 1987, one day after the country's first coup d'état, Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka's régime ordered The Fiji Times and the original Fiji Sun to stop publishing indefinitely while armed troops and police occupied the two offices. The next day, May 16, became the first time (apart from once during a hurricane in January 1986) in more than a century that The Fiji Times was not published. The military régime began a purge of political critics and opponents by arresting them without charge. The Fiji Sun, jointly owned by the Hongkong-based Sally Aw Sian publishing empire and New Zealand publisher Philip Harkness, eventually closed rather than publish under self-censorship restrictions.

Thirteen years later, on 19 May 2000, an attempted coup led by rogue businessman George Speight and seven renegade members of the élite 1st Meridian Squadron special forces engulfed the Fiji Islands in turmoil for the next three months. Speight and his armed co-conspirators stormed Parliament and seized the Labour-led Mahendra Chaudhry Government hostage for 56 days. On Chaudhry's release from captivity, he partly blamed the media for the overthrow of his government. Some sectors of the media were accused of waging a bitter campaign against the Fiji Labour Party-led administration and its rollback of privatisation (see Robie, 2001). In the early weeks of the insurrection, the media enjoyed an unusually close relationship with Speight, who displayed charismatic and bizarre charm, and the hostage-takers, raising ethical questions (Ibid, Pacific Journalism Review, 2001). Dilemmas faced by Fiji and foreign journalists were more complex than during the 1987 military coups.

Even though essentially it was a struggle for power within the indigenous Fijian community, and a conflict between tradition and modernity, the inevitable polarisation of races undermined objectivity. Of the total population of 830,000, 52 percent are indigenous Fijians, 44 percent Indo-Fijian and the balance a wide mixture of Polynesians, Melanesians, Chinese and people of European descent. It was apparent to then Daily Post editor Jale Moala that many local reporters had become "swept away by the euphoria of the moment and the tension and the emotion that charged the event" (Moala, 2001: 125) This, he recalls, was true of both indigenous Fijian and Indo-Fijian reporters.

For Moala, lack of leadership in some newsrooms was a significant factor. Another prominent journalist, a New Zealander who was the longest serving international news agency reporter during the crisis, Michael Field of Agence France-Presse, cited examples of how the credibility of the press "faded" because reporters were too close to the terrorists.

However, for Tongan humanities professor Konai Thaman, the problem was the journalists themselves and their alleged "distortions" and lack of cultural sensitivity. She complained at a recent conference in Budapest:

In the context of interim prime minister Laisenia Qarase's "track record of not respecting decisions of the court, [which] gave no reason for the Commonwealth to trust him", it was clear journalists in Fiji needed more training in the lead up to the General Election of August 26-September 1 (Dakuvula, 2001). However, little was done by the news media themselves and it was left to a non-government organisation, Fiji Media Watch, to run a workshop on "steering Fiji back to democracy" to help journalists face the issues and "walk the path of reconciliation" (Fiji Media Watch, 2001: 3).

The journalism programme made a major commitment to training the students, including a military workshop and tour of the mutiny-hit Queen Elizabeth Barracks (plus a session in the officer's mess); workshops with the Electoral Office; a dedicated course on the alternative voting system and allocation of preferences; and training for the new Wansolwara Online website. In addition, a group of nine students volunteered to monitor electorates around the country with a research team headed by USP's Dr Esther Williams and they also filed news stories.

Forty five students were involved in coverage of the Fiji General Election, representing eight countries, at least a dozen languages, and three main religions – Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. Naturally, the largest group of student journalists was from Fiji, twenty five, or almost half. The next largest group was from Samoa, seven; five came from the Solomon Islands, three from Tuvalu, two from Tonga, and one each from Kiribati, Marshall Islands and the Indian Ocean republic of the Maldives – she was the only international student from outside the regional country members.

The students were organised into three shifts with two overall online chief editors, one from Fiji responsible for the overall news selection and emphasis on Wansolwara Online, and the other, from Samoa, primarily responsible for the electorate candidates and election updates for all 71-seats. They had some assistance from about five subeditors. They were all trained by the journalism coordinator in the use of Adobe GoLive Cyberstudio3 professional website design, authoring and management software for two weeks before the official launching of the new website by FijiLive.com managing director Yashwant Gaunder on August 20. While complimenting the students on their new website, Gaunder warned them:

The chief-of-staff was a 29-year-old former radio journalist from Fiji who had never covered news before. The shifts were in groups of five or six students working seven days a week in three time slots, 8am-12noon, 12pm-4pm, and 4pm-8pm. One of each team of students checked the three morning dailies for potential follow-ups and monitored news on the national Radio Fiji and private station FM96, and also a daily talkback programme hosted by "Radio Tevita" Momoedonu, which featured political and civil society personalities (Ali, 2001). One more experienced student acted as a rewrite "anchor" while three were assigned for Wansolwara Online's own coverage. The final shift of the day also monitored the half-hour evening news bulletin of the country's only television station, Fiji One News, and frequently followed up on stories not picked up by the mainstream dailies.

Daily news conferences were held at 12 noon and 5.45 pm to do a post mortem on the previous day's coverage and discuss handling of the day's developing stories. Between July 21 and September 11 (the day of the terrorism tragedy in the United States), Wansolwara Online published 178 news stories and features on the election.

Wansolwara and Wansolwara Online had more clearly defined editorial policies than the mainstream news media. It was the, for example, only South Pacific print newspaper or website that actually had an editorial charter (adopted in 1998). The charter, displayed publicly online, and the United Nations student journalist code are used as the newspaper's ethics framework (Wansolwara, 1998):

Wansolwara is a campus-based community newspaper published by the journalism programme of the University of the South Pacific and it is distributed free to readers as widely as economically possible. Its online edition is hosted on the journalism programme website Pacific Journalism Online. It is a journalism training newspaper committed to freedom of information and expression with the following purposes:

1.To inform readers about issues affecting the university and the South Pacific region through quality independent news reports, feature articles and analysis.

2.To promote good governance in the South Pacific region.

3.To ensure coverage of the activities and concerns of the relatively poor and in the news and opinion articles.

4.To inform the region of important media and information developments, and to contribute to the debate of ethical and media issues.

5.To offer practical information and advice to students about community and academic life.

6.To provide an outlet for members of the USP academe, staff and students to communicate news and opinion about all tertiary and education in the region.

7.To avoid denigrating any individual or group unless the benefit to the general public from publishing such material exceeds the hurt the individual or group concerned.

8.To pursue all these goals with a sense of humour, and with a warm delight in the diversity of the region and its peoples.

The student press rights charter declares that the student press "should be free from regulations by any organ of the government, or by university authorities" and "free from regulations by other student organisations" (Ramirez, 1989; Robie, 1998: 22). It also states:

To cover the Fiji General Election, Wansolwara adapted a code used for the East Timor general election:

1. USP student journalists shall not be part of any political party structure.

2. Student journalists shall report in a balanced manner – without fear or favour for any political party. If a candidate makes an allegation against another candidate, the journalists should seek comment from both sides wherever possible.

3. As far as possible, student journalists shall report the views of candidates and political parties directly and in their own words, rather than as others describe them.

4. Student journalists shall do the utmost to correct any published information that is found to be harmfully inaccurate.

5. Student journalists shall not wear political party paraphernalia when reporting.

6. Student journalists shall avoid using language or expressing sentiments that

may lead to further discrimination or violence on any grounds, including race, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinions, and national or social origins.

7. Student journalists shall not accept any inducement from a politician or candidate.

8. Student journalists shall not make any promise to a politician about the content of a news report.

9. Student journalists shall take care in reporting the findings of opinion polls. Any report should wherever possible include the following information: Who commissioned and carried out the poll and when? How many people were interviewed? Where and how were they interviewed and what is the margin of error? What was the exact wording of the questions?

10. Student journalists must make a clear distinction between editorial and opinion pieces with regular reporting.

11. Student journalists may report on ongoing vote counting as long as there is clarity that the number is provisional – not the final count. Fiji’s Electoral Office will issue the official tally.

While virtually all students involved in the election coverage found it an enriching experience, the neophite journalists on the programme not surprisingly found the biggest learning curve. Even the political process itself was an eye-opener for many students, some of whom were too young to vote in a country where the legal voting age is twenty one. Reflected one 20-year-old Fiji Islander who is studying history/politics as her second major:

The same student related her visit to Samabula polling station when officials stopped her reporting with a digital camera while allowing a Fiji television cameraman to enter the building.

Other students found the assignment a "scary" challenge.

For others it was exciting, such as for this Tuvalu student:

Or part of a goal.

Even the routine tasks such as monitoring radio and television news had some attraction, as this Samoan student found:

For a Fijian journalist, an important experience was the realisation of the need for good teamwork.

One of the Wansolwara editors who had several years' experience as a journalist, but in sports coverage rather than news, was astonished at the high productivity of the trainee journalists.

The complex cultural challenges faced by many of the regional students provided important insights. A 23-year-old student from Kiribati observed:

A Samoan journalist also had cultural dilemmas.

Coping with her own cultural challenges, a 25-year-old Tongan journalist relates how she resolved how to cover Fiji's new prime minister in a media crowd taller than her.

For one 26-year-old Fijian journalist, the election coverage helped her come to the

Of course, there are sensitivities to consider. There is no need to to be "gratuitously insulting" towards anybody's culture (Naidu, 2001: 68), a disturbingly regular feature of the newspaper letters to the editor columns. Nevertheless, fair and proper questioning of some cultural norm in a political context – even if controversial – is reasonable.

Times and technology may have changed dramatically in this era of media convergence, but the basics remain the same. The Fiji General Election provided a valuable training environment and yardstick for Pacific journalists' training. The students developed a capacity for informed critical reflection on both the nature of the political process in Fiji and their role as journalists. What is remarkable perhaps in such a culturally sensitive region is the ease and speed with which student journalists absorb their own "media culture" and devise their own strategies. Media is not a "Western culture" as some politicians and academics in the region insist. There are varied national journalistic styles and news values that have evolved in developing countries and are also evolving or being adapted in Pacific countries. Some of these values, as represented by the "Four Worlds news values", are being formally addressed and taught by the USP journalism programme (Robie, 2001d: 13)

As Fiji media lawyer and former journalist Richard Naidu argues:

Barrett believes that all cultures undergo a change, none spared. After all, culture is an expression of a collective way of life and thought. In the end, information will make the difference. And that, he says, is where the journalist comes in to play an important role. Informed and critically reflective journalists can make sense of the changes and processes needed to improve the lives of Pacific people in this globalised world.

Ali, Noora (2001). "On live with Radio Tevita", Wansolwara ((print edition), September edition.

Barrett, Tia (2000). "Journalism and Indigenous Issues", address by NZ High Commissioner at the USP Journalism Awards, Suva, November 24.

Cass, Philip (1999). "The origins of Wansolwara", Pacific Journalism Online, July 31.

Dakuvula, Jone (2001). "Of government's ego and pride", Fiji's Daily Post, November 5, p 6.

Field, Michael (2001), "The Bure Newsroom", Pacific Journalism Review, September, 7(1)21-28.

Fiji Media Watch (2001). "Report on Steering Fiji Back to Democracy: A Challenge to the Journalists of Fiji", Suva, Lautoka, May 28-June 8.

Gaunder, Yashwant (2001). "Journos told: 'Keep up the watchdog basics'," Wansolwara Online, August 20.

Moala, Jale (2001). "Political reporting and editorial balance", chapter in Robie, David (2001), The Pacific Journalist: A Practical Guide. Suva: USP Journalism Programme.

Naidu, Richard (2001). "Media ethics in elections", Pacific Journalism Review, September, 7(1)65-68.

Pacific Journalism Review (2001). "Crisis and coverage: Fiji coup, Solomons and PNG" edition, September.

PANPA Bulletin (2001). "Ossies recognise promising talent of the future", February 14.

Pasifik Nius (2000). "Diplomat's criticisms over coup justice stir row", November 26.

Ramirez, Jaime (1989). "The role of the Student Press in a Changing World", chapter in Philippine Journalism Handbook, Manila, National Book Store, 3^rd Edition.

Robie, David (1995). "Uni Tavur: the evolution of a student press", Australian Journalism Review, 17(2):95-101.

Robie, David (1997). "Electronic Student Newspaper: Uni Tavur and Pedagogy of Experience", AsiaPacific MediaEducator, January-June, No 2 pp 121-125

Robie, David (1998). "Student rights and codes of ethics" in Newsroom Handbook, University of the South Pacific, p 22.

Robie, David (2000). "Spicol Daily: A Pacific Media Partnership Case Study", AsiaPacific MediaEducator, January-June, No 8, pp 34-41.

Robie, David (2001a). "Coup Coup Land: The Press and the Putsch in Fiji", AsiaPacific Media Educator, January-July, No 10, pp 148-162.

Robie, David (2001b). "Frontline Reporters: A students' internet coup", Pacific Journalism Review, September, Vol 7 (1), pp 47-56.

Robie, David (2001c). "Freedom of Speech in the Pacific: Culture and Conflict", address at the inaugural Pacific Islands Media Association (PIMA) conference at Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, 5-6 October 2001.

Robie, David (2001d). The Pacific Journalist: A Practical Guide, University of the South Pacific Journalism Programme,

Sheridan Burns, Lynette (1997). Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and Journalism Education: Is it New Jargon for Something Familiar?, Australian Journalism Review, 19(2)59-72.

Thaman, Konai Helu (2001). "Reclaiming Pacific Images: A View of Communication and Peace", address at the International Association of Media and Communication Research conference, Budapest, 6-10 September 2001.

Wansolwara (1998). Editorial Charter.

Pacific Journalism Online (Fiji General Election archive):

Wansolwara (Print):