by KEVIN PAMBA
Getting to roots of Moti affair
THE PNG media is not going to
independently find out if the Julian Moti saga is more than
identifying who ordered his “clandestine” departure to Solomon
Islands.
It doesn’t have the capacity to find answers to the seemingly
obscure and hard questions.
It is an event-driven media so pre-occupied with reporting obvious
events and not the underlying issues that prelude. This type of
journalism is the mainstay of the global media today. This is not
surprising in an era of shrinking editorial budgets as cost saving
becomes a permanent feature of global newsrooms.
An even-driven media that is a slave of the daily newsroom
deadline, will hardly venture behind the obvious ‘news event’. To
do so is deemed expensive and not good for business. It will
remain where it is comfortable – with news events that are easy to
gather information and report on.
Such a media pounces on bursts of negativity – even the trivial –
that is brought to its attention.
Events such as the “clandestine” escape of Moti, is godsend for an
event-driven media. The energy that an event-driven media exerts
to pounce on such a ‘news event’ can be measured by the choice of
vocabulary. Words such as “clandestine” and “fugitive” receive
currency with much enthusiasm.
Any layman can deduce that there is something amiss with the way
the Australian was spirited out of Port Moresby to remote Mundi in
Solomon Islands the night of last Oct 10.
It doesn’t require extensive media coverage to come to this
conclusion.
Some people including the media are so agitated about the
departure of an obscure Australian on a PNG Defence Force plane in
the cover of darkness.
Why has it taken up so much useful time, money and media editorial
space, debating one event that began with the controversial arrest
of a passing Australian?
Whether the way Moti was allowed to depart PNG was exemplary of
the corruption and disregard of the rule of law in the Government
system will be determined at the end of the ongoing
investigations.
Few people if at all, have stood back and asked where all these
came from – how did the Moti saga start?
They have wondered if PNG is a pawn in someone else’s chess game.
It requires a more vigilant and objective media to pursue such a
question. To date, it is a pitiful naught. The event-driven media
has preoccupied itself with what is easy and obvious and it is
going into over-drive to report the daily deliberations of the
Defence inquiry into the Moti affair. It is made to look as though
this one issue has robbed PNG of its ability to look after the
growing population of those who, for example, desperately need
Government support in health, education and general welfare. This
is not to say that the daily hearings of the inquiry should not be
reported. But PNG can be spared the excessive coverage at the
expense of other worthy news including investigations on other
factors that may have led to the “clandestine” escape of Moti.
PNG is among too many developing countries that have their
reputations continually battered by misplaced and ill-focused
journalism by an event-driven media culture. And the kind of media
attention given to the Moti inquiry and events surrounding it fits
this bill perfectly.
Those who love bashing developing countries like PNG will feel
comfortable with the type of media attention on the events
relating to the clandestine escape of Moti. To them it is further
evidence that developing countries are a bastion of corruption and
all forms of evil and nothing good can happen there.
If anything, the buck should stop with the National Government for
the “clandestine” escape of the Australian lawyer.
The Government is the ultimate authority – agencies and individual
public servants allegedly involved were its instruments.
Whether it was done on the direction of the Executive Government
or not, those who acted represented the Government of the
Independent State of Papua New Guinea.
The Executive Government may not want to be seen in such vein –
but in what better way can an objective observer make sense of the
saga under current circumstances?
Any lack of cooperation by the Executive Government in the Defence
Board of Inquiry is a disservice to itself and the general public.
If the Defence Board of Inquiry is inappropriate, then another
inquiry with a broader scope is necessary. A proactive and attuned
media could assist in suggesting this to happen and take the lead
by going behind the obvious façade to investigate if there were
other forces at play in how the Moti issue started.
One caller to a radio talk show last week became the exception
when he suggested a “Royal Commission of Inquiry” whose terms of
reference must include the role of the Australian government and
the Australian police from the start.
The caller said the whole issue must be investigated from the
start, as the “clandestine” departure of Moti was a secondary
event to what may have happened initially.
People will want to know why Australia left Moti a free man in his
country and only wanted him when he was en route to Solomon
Islands to take up his new posting as the attorney-general.
Moti was cleared of child sex charges in Vanuatu by a District
Court there in 1997.
Nearly 10 years had lapsed and Australia did nothing about him.
The caller’s suggestion makes sense.
