grubsheet

Fiji has a new Miss World contestant after a debacle that has shamed the local organisers and severely dented sponsor confidence in the country’s ability to stage credible events. The original winner of the competition – 16-year old Torika Watters – has been deemed ineligible, on the grounds of age, to participate in the forthcoming Miss World in … [Read more...] about # MISS WORLD FIJI DEBACLE

A central pillar of the Fiji Government's promised return to democracy in 2014 is the formulation of a new constitution to provide for one man one vote, a feature that was noticeably absent in the 1997 constitution abrogated three years ago. The job has been given to a panel led by Professor Yash Ghai, a constitutional expert who's a global … [Read more...] about #79 CONSTITUTIONAL CAPERS

Tupuola Terry Tavita is media advisor to the Samoan prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, and editor of Savali, the Samoan government newspaper. He’s also a barroom bruiser who’s been openly castigated by his Pacific journalist colleagues for his racist comments on industry websites. Readers of Grubsheet will be familiar with his … [Read more...] about #78 PACIFIC MEDIA PUG (UPDATED 10/5)

Journalist educators have much in common with Caesar’s wife. They not only have to be above reproach but be seen to be above reproach. Anything less and these pillars of journalistic propriety can crumble in an instant, exposed in the eyes of their students and the wider community as emperors with no clothes. They need to live up to the high … [Read more...] about #77 ON THE EDGE. AGAIN

A major row between the heads of two of the South Pacific’s foremost journalism schools threatens to spill over into a wider arena and damage regional relationships. The director of the influential Pacific Media Centre at the Auckland University of Technology, Professor David Robie, has accused the head of the School of Journalism at the Fiji-based … [Read more...] about #76 MEDIA TITANS CLASH (UPDATED 10/5)

Grubsheet has again been wrestling in these columns with correspondents who claim - invariably without concrete evidence - that Frank Bainimarama and his regime are guilty of "torture" and widespread "human rights abuses". There seems little doubt that some regime critics have been subjected to summary beatings in military custody and these are not … [Read more...] about #75 NOW THAT’S HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE