MEDIA BIAS: NOT US says FIJI SUN but Beddoes survey reveal the paper is blatantly BIAS; MIDA is yet to act against pro-regime paper! 24/06/20140 Comments Picture Beddoes MEDIA BIAS SURVEY SURVEY PERIOD: APRIL 1st to JUNE 18 2014 MATERIAL SOURCE: FIJI SUN & FIJI TIMES NEWS PAPERS The Truth about Media Bias. There’s been much discussion about this. The issue here concerns what many believe to be a lack of fair and balanced coverage by Fiji’s two daily newspapers. The end result of such a scenario is that readers are deprived of the facts, comment and news reporting they require to make informed decisions. In an election it is even more vital for the people to have access to credible even-handed reporting. Without this an election cannot truly be regarded as free and fair as the electorate is less than well informed and therefore limited in its ability to make a sound judgment on whom to vote for or support. On June 12th 2014 during the opening of the Fiji First office in Suva, Frank Bainimarama accused the Fiji Times of bias. I thought it was extraordinary that he made no comment about the content and slant of the political coverage of the Fiji Times competitor, the Fiji Sun. This said something about the way his mind works. Many citizens regard the Sun as being primarily a mouthpiece for the Bainimarama government. In other words, they see it as being extremely biased in favor of the administration to the extent that it is a propaganda organ. In a Fiji Sun report on April 30th 2014 about a media workshop held in Suva, the Chairman of MIDA, Ashwin Raj while rejecting claims that the Fiji Sun is biased in favor of the regime said, quote - ‘That is not true, I wish you could read the Fiji Sun on a daily basis because I’ve seen various reports on the National Federation Party, lots of attention on its new leadership. I’ve seen pieces by the Fiji Labour Party leader, pieces by SODELPA, PDP secretariat, and so it’s there’ Unquote. Ms Rachna Lal The managing editor of business Fiji Sun said this about their reporting at the same workshop, quote Denies claims The Fiji Sun is a government newspaper but says Rear Admiral Bainimaramas policies have been positive. Ms Lal says he has done a lot of work developing rural areas, which had been neglected by previous governments. What we are as a newspaper, and we make no apologies for this, is broadly supportive of the Bainimarama governments policies. We believe these policies are building a better Fiji. We know these policies have strong, broad, public support These are all very strong comments and denials. What are the people to make of them? What is the truth? Either we can all see it or those defending the obvious bias are in a constant state of denial for obvious reasons. So we decided to check for ourselves. Over the last three weeks, I organized our own research into the content of both newspapers; the aim was to get a clear picture of the political content of both news papers so that we could make a reasoned judgment on the extent or otherwise, of bias. The research covered the period from April 1st to June 18th. Of the 79 days covered, we surveyed 59 issues of the Fiji Sun which is 75% of all issues in that period, and 58 Fiji Times or 73% of the total issues in that period. Picture
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 16:27:59 +0000
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