The British satirical magazine, Private Eye, used to cry “Pass the sick bag, Alice” whenever a story emerged that triggered a bout of collective gagging because it was so brazen and shameful.
In Fiji at the weekend, it was “Pass the sick bag, Rosi” as the Fiji Sun‘s Rosi Doviverata – the President of the Fiji Media Association – tried to pass off a bunch of journalistic pygmies, wannabes and hacks as crusaders for truth at the revived Fiji Achievement in Media Excellence (FAME) Awards.
Behind her as she rewrote the history of the Fijian mainstream media’s woeful performance over the years was the branding of FAME’s major sponsor, Fiji Water, which has played its own role in corrupting the media with private jet rides and lavish hospitality at its headquarters in the US. (see below)
The seven-year tax holiday granted to Fiji Water by the Coalition government at the instigation of Fiji Water’s local lawyer, Richard Naidu – wearing his simultaneous hat as Chair of the government’s Fiscal Review Committee – is a national scandal that the Fijian media largely ignored.
Here were the billionaire owners of the Wonderful Company getting a wonderful tax break when the struggling Fijian people had Value Added Tax on a host of items raised to 15 per cent. Anywhere else in the world, there would have been a media-led outcry. But Fiji Water has bought the mainstream media’s silence and its reward has been a lavish awards ceremony sponsored by the company – an orgy of self-congratulation that had the nation’s long suffering media consumers retching.
The abject failure of the mainstream media to properly cover the nation’s events – its routine bias, negligence and manipulation of the news to protect the commercial interests of media owners – is bad enough. But to rub it in our faces with a gala knees-up at which history was rewritten and a whole lot of hyperbole and spin was dished up as fact really took the keke.
Read the Fiji Times reports of the following speeches and see if you can keep your own breakfast down. These people are legends in their own minds, peddling journalistic twaddle day in, day out. Often ignoring the truth of what is really happening in Fiji – the dysfunction, chaos and corruption – or spinning events to curry favour with the governing and commercial elites.
Their role is supposed to be to hold government to account. Yet instead, they have become instruments of government control. Worse, they have become the first journalists in Fijian history to be literally bought off – to take money from the government in the form of “public service” grants to their proprietors, some of whom like William “Poo-poo” Parkinson of CFL-Fiji Village are making record profits when the nation has never been in so much debt and most Fijians live below the poverty line.
Rosi Doviverata’s high-minded language masks an ugly secret. She has actually commissioned articles for the Fiji Sun that have subsequently been “spiked” because their content doesn’t suit the paper’s agenda. Yet she has the gall to cast the Sun and the rest of the media as courageous pursuers of the truth. The same is true of the preposterous Stanley Simpson, whose Mai TV only survives with government support and who long ago sold his journalistic soul for money and influence.
Doubtless they will dismiss Grubsheet as the discredited former propagandist for the Bainimarama regime. But Rosi Doviveirata was in the room at the GPH when I was specifically invited to speak to Fiji Sun journalists in 2013.
What did I tell them? That they were no use to anyone – including the government’s credibility – if they didn’t do their jobs properly and reported without fear or favour. I specifically urged those present to keep opinions out of the news columns.
What did the Fiji Sun do? Entirely the opposite. It chose to slavishly side with the government and routinely publish naked propaganda. And that included Rosi Doviverata.
Yes, pass the sick bag, Rosi. Trust you all enjoyed the night.
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And then Stan, the Neutered Man.
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“Freedom has won!”? Oh really?
Pass the sick bag, Stan.
The Fijian mainstream media. Routinely self-righteous, self-deluded and negligent. And leaving the journalistic heavy lifting to others.
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“Freedom has won” my big white arse.
“Every media house in Fiji has something tall to stand on”. Clearly she means Bullsh*t!
ANISH CHAND scooped the “Journalist of the Year” — as if obedience now counts as bravery. These awards don’t honor truth; they reward how skillfully one can look away while power picks pockets in broad daylight.
When watchdogs are given trophies for sitting on their tails, the public isn’t being informed — it’s being managed.
Was this Dalit dog not rabid under the previous government but now neutered.
I suppose when you pay enough money and call it “sponsorship”, even life’s failures like Anish Chand and Vijay Narayan can afford to get useless awards from other life’s failures such as Stanley “who’s your daddy?” Simpson and Rosi “the hulk” Doviverata.
These guys are clowns. Stanley, Rosi, Vijay, Anish et al do not realise that half of the country is laughing at them. The other half is weeping at the pathetic standards of the Fiji media today.
It does seem to me that ironically the tax holiday has all the hallmarks of a great piece of investigative journalism.
Why did it happen? Who made it happen? Why was it a top priority? Who benefitted most from it? What sort of economic analysis was applied to it? How were conflicts of interest managed?
Not to say anything untoward happened but surely tax payers deserve more information. Is there a tax holiday policy? Can anyone apply? Is this only a route open to the elite?
Here’s the route in this instance:
The multi-billionaire Resnicks of Fiji Water…their local lawyer and Chair of the government’s Fiscal Review Committee, Richard Naidu…Naidu’s NFP colleague, client, finance minister and deputy prime minister Biman Prasad… Prime Minister Rabuka, who goes to visit the Resnicks in Los Angeles, then the rest of the cabinet.
Presto. Approval. And not one serious question from the mainstream media, which Richard Naidu partly controls in his role as legal gatekeeper at the Fiji Times.
It ain’t rocket science.
Politicians have been vomiting in Fiji since 1970 and the Fiji Times journalists back then used to eat it up. This group have turned it into an art form. Stanley looks as if he is so emotional on stage. God, they make me laugh.
Just look at the size of the girth of the journalists, if one can call them that. Their fatness and obesity are a worrying sign for both their personal health and the health of journalism. It’s a sign of stuffing their faces and gorging on too much free food and drink—too many junkets and trips.
Every time you open social media, the same journalists are either traveling somewhere or posing at another cocktail. No wonder no real work gets done and they try to mask it with a bullshit awards night.
Government grants and overseas aid are slowly killing journalists and journalism in Fiji— over feeding them instead of fueling them.
It was quite cringe worthy how proud they looked at receiving some useless local awards. Vijay Narayan was almost bursting at his seams and with his jowly jaws.
Aren’t these people ashamed? But I guess a lot of the new generation don’t know how to read and write and are raised on tik tok and Instagram. They think they are very smart but have very little to no IQ.
I mean look at the failure rate at primary level. 65%. So in years to come, the caliber of these failures will be just what we are going through now.
Robert Keith-Reid was a real journalist in Fiji.
Unafraid to tell the truth.
Yes, he is sorely missed.
Vijay vuji Narayan couldn’t string a coherent sentence together as he was interviewed after receiving his tv award when he doesn’t even work in tv. The mind boggles. He and Stanley and Anish all read from tbe same script about how they were victimized and had so much fear during tbe Bainimarama days.
The lying MPs (media prostitutes) will never admit that they used to produce countless critical stories about the Bainimarama govt. They repeat this lie about fear so much that some actually believe they are telling tbe truth.
Stanley now acts like a typical Savusavu gauri crying at tbe drop of a hat like his mentor Rabaku. How can Anish get a serious award for writing and reporting in the English language when he still to this day says aarunt and waarunt when trying to say aren’t and weren’t.
How come Pupu and Netani (closet racist) Rika get life achievement awards? What the f**k have they done to really build the media industry in fiji? How come Mai gets a number of media awards when they don’t actually have a proper news service?
The whole bloody night was farce.
Fiji Transparency is also unimpressed by the awards night. They do have a point:
“Looks like every man and his dog won an award at FAME – the revived awards night for our laughing stock of a national media.
Awards were being dished out like Chinese lollies at a grog session.
Just as the awards were numerous, so is the quality of journalism pathetic.
Anish Chand winning some top award was perhaps the biggest joke of the night
Anish made the headlines himself recently for getting key details in an FNPF story so wrong that his own favorite former Minister for Finance had to issue a statement against the story.
It is not the first time Anish has been pulled up on failing to get the basics right.
His biased journalism is well known for apologetically promoting his friends Charan Jeet Singh and failed finance minister Biman Prasad (now facing corruption charges).
Cry baby Stanley Simpson, too, was at it again.
Stanley sucked up to FijiFirst for funding, and has overnight become their biggest critic.
He is now promoting the Coalition Government for the same reasons 🤑.
The public should not be fooled by the awards night.
The corruption of the Fiji media now bought off by government grants should be a big concern for democracy and a free press in Fiji.
Stanley Simpson, Vijay Narayan and Rosi Doviverata all have their snouts in the trough and do not give two hoots about press freedom in Fiji.”
To the public Fiji media is influenced by government and business.
Mai TV is influenced by the Church’s influence on the media. The church is Mai TV shareholder.
Stanley Simpson talks big and Mai TV win an award. But did not cover the Samabula Shiv Temple sacrilege.
I did not see single story by Mai TV. What kind be journalism is this? It’s religiously biased media.
Mai TV is taking money from tax payer but its reporting is garbage only one sided.
At this rate, FAME has probably run out to people to award next year if the event happens again.
Most Fiji journalists started well but got captured by political and commercial interests. The good ones couldn’t compromise their principles and exited the Fiji Media Industry.
When will the journalists report on the impregnation of a special needs underage child by the President who fathered a child from her?
Where is that story Rosi, Vijay, Anish, and others?
Is that not in the public interest that a High Chief is above the law?
That the High Chief was appointed by the PM just because he is his chief and the PM is sucking up to him for everything. That he is a useless, unqualified bloodsucker of his people. When are they going to report on his useless extended overseas sojourn, his false statement that King Charles had invited a GCC delegation, his medical treatment in India while pretending to “strengthen ties” and the list goes on.
I am told the PM will be gone if he gets rid of the pedo President.
Isn’t there a story there for the public interest or are the “journalists” of Fiji too chicken to rock the boat because they are just too busy basking in false glory. Just like the PM has been doing for a long time but there is really nothing to show for it apart from his shiny false medals.
Just like the common iTaukei are too chicken to speak up about the same matter. Too much “tradition and culture” and not enough balls.