Fiji Sun: "Fiji first!" means "Fijians uninformed!" (UPDATED)

It's 12:30 pm on Saturday as I write this in Melbourne, Australia. That makes it 1:30 pm on Saturday afternoon in Suva, Fiji. The photo above is of the Navo Bridge just outside Nadi, the hub for 99% of visitors to Fiji via its international airport. This bridge is a part of the Queens Highway that runs the length of Viti Levu's southern coast. It passes through Sigatoka, runs past the Coral Coast and ends in Suva, where it turns north and becomes Kings Highway, which extends along most of Viti Levu's east and north coasts.

In other words, after two days of rain and devastating floods in Viti Levu's Western Division, the main arterial link between Nadi and the Coral Coast has a great big hole in it.

You'd expect Fiji's online news sites to be thick with reports from devastated towns like Ba, Nadi, and Sigatoka, and sites like Fiji Times Online and FijiLive are serving their roles as informers of the people by doing just that.

What about the Fiji Sun, which bills itself as 'Fiji's Number 1 News Site' and wears its government stamp of approval like a Vichy Regime general in his spit-polished jackboots?

At 1:45 pm Suva time, where the Fiji Sun's offices are located (I used to work just up the block from them) this is what 'Fiji's Number 1 News Site' considers critical reading for its readers:

Awareness to be consistent -- climate change
Campaign boosts local confidence -- a sycophantic reprint of comments made by AG Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum regarding the gov't's 'Fijian Made and Buy Fijian' initiative
7s Revenge -- rugby, but not Fiji's rugby team ... England's
The King, PINA and I -- a Radio Australia reporter's memories of a dinner with the recently deceased king of Tonga

OK, you're thinking ... so the floods aren't MAJOR headlines. Surely they're mentioned elsewhere on the page? Let's take a look:

Boost for rice farming -- a verbatim statement from MINISTRY OF PRIMARY AND INDUSTRIES, whatever the fuck that is
Dredging benefits Rewa farmers -- another statement from, you guessed it, MINISTRY OF PRIMARY AND INDUSTRIES
Students tour Sun -- lucky kids get to see the putrid guts of a propaganda factory
Govt helps Lau schools -- another verbatim statement, this one from MINISTRY OF PROVINCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Classes for women -- opening of a sewing center
Youths are future leaders -- vital words from 'Minister for Youth and Sports Commander Viliame Naupoto'
Man admits assault charge -- self-explanatory, and barely 5 lines long
Teachers join fight against drug abuse -- self-explanatory
Bus runs over woman -- self-explanatory

Nope. Not a single word about the devastating floods that hit the Western Division yesterday and washed away a critical Queens Highway bridge that serves the bulk of tourist traffic from Nadi to the Coral Coast and Suva.

Why would anyone waste your and their own time laying out an entire homepage of a website? Because this is all you need to know about the mindset of the Fijian gov't, which flagrantly uses the Fiji Sun as its mouthpiece:

The gov't of Voreqe Bainimarama does not consider the suffering of ordinary Fijians as news. It's more routine than the benefits of dredging for rice farmers and the opening of a sewing center.

and

Visitors to Fiji are to be kept from information regarding their safety upon arrival.

There's actually plenty more to be read into this journalistic malfeasance but I've already wasted too much of my energy on an organisation as pathetic as the Fiji Sun and a government so incompetent, so cynical, so manipulative, and so treachorous as the one lorded over by Voreqe Bainimarama and his henchmen.

UPDATE: In case you've wondered if the Fiji Sun's editors and writers have been kept from their duties by the terrible conditions happening across Viti Levu ... guess again. As shown in this screen grab, Fiji Sun's homepage has been updated since 1:30 pm Suva time with the following stories of critical importance:

Teacher dreams of farming full-time -- self-explanatory
Biblical theory for North -- a strange report on how Commissioner Northern Lieutenant-Colonel Ilai Moceica is going to teach locals about the Vanua Levu Modernisation Construction theory by using something called the Joshua theory.

There you have it. Those are the Saturday afternoon updates to the Fiji Sun's homepage on a day when Fijians across Viti Levu are scrambling to overcome yet another vicious blow. Their government's mouthpiece just doesn't care or is intentionally avoiding reporting something that may frighten travelers to Fiji. Take your pick -- they're both derelictions of duty, and ample reason to distrust those responsible.

UPDATE 2:Just came across this beauty in the letters to the editor section of the Wednesday, 4 April Fiji Times. Speaks volumes to how Bainimarama's government expects the media to always -- ALWAYS -- focus on the heroic efforts of Fearless Leader to alleviate the suffering of his people while ignoring the actual suffering itself:

WHY must The Fiji Times sensationalise issues related to the suffering of Fijians during this time of tragedy?

Your article "Babies suffering" by Avinesh Gopal (FT 03/04) not only neglects the fact that government has made provisions for infant formula, which we sent out a statement about yesterday to all media including The Fiji Times and its staff, it also left out the fact that Prime Minister Bainimarama personally visited the Sigatoka Methodist College evacuation centre to assess and assist.

Your story is unbalanced and lacks the context of the hundreds of government officials in the field working night and day to reach every single Fijian with help.

Furthermore, when media encounter situations where people are trapped on roofs, or without water, or swimming in floodwaters, it needs to do its part too to alert authorities, not just report a tragic story.

We are all Fijians, and we need to support one another.

During times of crises, people will be suffering, but if we work together, we will reach everyone and limit the suffering that occurs, particularly that which relates to our children.

Sharon Smith Johns
Permanent Secretary
Ministry of Information

Johns is an Aussie huckster who reminds me of Tony Abbott, leader of the federal opposition here. Condescending, always in attack mode, incapable of subtlety, devoid of self-awareness. The lifting of the PER has given Fiji's media just enough rope to hang itself with. Nonsensical haranguing like this spells doom for press freedom.