Political influences on media? Called for good journalism reporting in Solomon Islands

Politicians are so good in influencing the role of the media in many ways in our various societies. They influenced the media directly or indirectly for their political interest. Solomon Islands for that matter is not exception from this practice. Politicians have continually indirectly influenced or directly criticized the media in hoping to regain or keeping their reputation maintain from many reported public interest issues they have involved in. Early this year, the Solomon Islands’ Prime Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo had criticized the Solomon Starnews paper for its continue reporting on issues that the government or politicians had allegedly involved in or failed to fulfil  PM Lilo in turned describe journalism standard in Solomon Islands as unhealthy. He made the statement for what he viewed as unfair reporting on certain issues by the Solomonstar newspaper. One of the many issues that the Prime Minister was concerned about is the publication of sex scandal that he allegedly involved in. He said reporting must come with great responsibility.

 “Whilst media freedom is an important aspect of a democracy it does come with a lot of responsibility. However it is apparent that some journalists under the guise of the freedom of expression have gone to the extreme to hurt others through the production of baseless articles and promoting sensational journalism. What they don’t admit is their failure to fairly report on the issue instead they allow their emotions to take the pole position and depict to the public that they are a victim of a suppressive regime.”

He said it is the responsibility of media to verify an issue and to get the views of those who were affected or both sides of the story.

“Any trained or even untrained journalist should know the power of balancing news stories. This should be the difference between a social network and the mainstream media. If I was to rank the health of the journalism standard in this country, I would label it as very unhealthy. This is because journalism here thrives on hearsay, stories are duplicated, stories carry just one source; and seriously there is a lack of factual and analytical articles.”

However, Solomon Star’s Chief Reporter Ednal Palmer said the Prime Minister’s comments were merely to discredit the paper for obvious reasons, but welcomed the criticisms.

“Sounds a bit desperate, but we welcome criticisms and we favour no one.”

Its more reasonable to call for good journalism reporting if politicians are totally free from corruption. I think generally labelling the standard of journalism as unhealthy is sound absurd, knowing that many reported issues are facts and the media is trying its best to curb corruption in the country. The media is playing its role as a watch dog, reporting and informing the public on issues involving elites that lead the country. However, its all coming back to all media organizations to apply more journalism ethical standard and be responsible when reporting certain sensitive issues.