FEO takes a swipe at Times

SUPERVISOR of Elections Mohammed Saneem attacked The Fiji Times during a media conference yesterday, accusing it of “creating misinformation” about voter registration issues.

“There are certain news agencies that have a propaganda it appears, every second day you hear something about the birth certificate issue, even to the extent they conducted a poll to say ‘can we use another ID (identification) for voting’,” he said.

“So who’s going to make that ID for you Fiji Times, this is the question that I’m asking and it can be answered by Fiji Times I’m assuming.

“Because you already have a voter card that is meant for voting, you want to use another ID, this is Fiji Times creating more misinformation, more confusion amongst voters and then writing the front-page story saying ‘Confusion’.”

Mr Saneem claimed it was The Fiji Times that was creating confusion when it came to registration of voters.

“Remember, the media must play its role and it must be very careful about the type of information it continues to run,” he said.

“This is the most important stage of the election process, the registration of voters and, if the media like The Fiji Times continues to create confusion by writing so many confusing stories, by having its letter writers produce so many confusing stories, I think then it is doing disservice to the public.

“This is something that we are very concerned about and whilst the Fijian Elections Office knows that the circulation is not that high, we will still have to clarify this because this is a formal news media outlet,” Mr Saneem said.

“And it is very, very unfortunate.”

He said the Elections Office would be monitoring how many times such stories appeared.

“Because in terms of the elections, the credibility of the organisation goes down and we will not hesitate to call it out.”

The Fiji Times editor Fred Wesley said it was “not unusual at all” for Mr Saneem to pick on The Fiji Times.

“Mr Saneem has had every opportunity to respond to every report we published. We ask him to respond and he does not. Why is he now attacking The Fiji Times?

“We want balance. We want his side of the story. We have made an effort to send him questions.

“We agree with him that this is an important part of the election process. So the people need to hear from him,” Wesley said

“We are playing our role, as he points out, by highlighting issues raised by people. He needs to clarify these issues.

“There is a reason people will ask questions. As we head towards the elections, this is the right time to do that. People must have the confidence to ask questions, and get answers from the Supervisor of Elections. They need answers. They may be confused and need some clarity.

“Mr Saneem continues to talk about misinformation and propaganda. He has a duty to correct that by responding to questions.”