Saturday, March 28, 2009

FIJI: Media council says need for balanced coverage now critical

3:33 AM |

Title – 6043 FIJI: Media council says need for balanced coverage now
critical

Date – 28 March 2009

Byline – None

Origin – Pacific Media Watch

Source – Radio NZ International, 27/03/09

Copyright – RNZI

Status – Unabridged

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* Pacific Media Watch Online - check the website for archive and links:

www.pacmediawatch.aut.ac.nz

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*FIJI MEDIA COUNCIL SAYS BALANCED COVERAGE MORE CRITICAL NOW THAN EVER *

www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=45601

SUVA (*RNZI Online/Pacific Media Watch*): The Fiji Media Council says
providing balanced coverage of events in the country has never been more
important than it is at the moment.

His comments come after attacks on the homes of the editor-in-chief of
the *Fiji
Times* and a security recruitment agent.

The military, the police and the interim government claim the media’s
portrayal of these attacks is unbalanced.

But the council’s chairperson, Daryl Tarte, says that under the
circumstances, the media are reporting these events as objectively as they
can.

*“The media in Fiji, just as in Australia, is entitled to be be partisan if
they want to be. It’s probably more dangerous to be partisan in Fiji than it
is in Australia but the fact is that I think most media in Fiji are trying
to report as objectively and in a balanced way as they can. It is very
dangerous for them not to do so. And the examples of the recent attacks on
the editor of the Fiji Times is evidence of this”*

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