Race Relations

The stepping down of Torika Watters as our representative to the Miss World event in Mongolia highlighted how the overseas media tend to sensationalize the news. As mentioned in my earlier blog, many of them chose to focus on the issue of race as the reason for her stepping down. But reading through some of the news articles you quickly realise that there version of  "ugly race row" is confined comments on the Miss World Fiji Facebook page.

Racial division is deep-seated in Fiji's social and political history, and hundreds of hateful comments had to be deleted from the official Miss World Fiji Facebook page.

Really? "Hundreds" As a frequent visitor to that Facebook, i must admit that yes, there were some references to her looks, but not "hundreds". 

Hundreds of complaints had to be deleted and a pageant spokeswoman said on Facebook there had been "nothing but negative criticism and remarks from our own people" about the selection of Watters.

 Yes there, were negative comments, but there were more positive ones. And if these news outlets were more responsible, they would go to the Facebook page themselves and see  the comments for themselves.

 TVNZ   ran a news story that led with

The Miss World competition is meant to encourage world peace, but it's causing an ugly race row in Fiji.

Again their source is from Facebook comments!   ABC News , News.com.au, TVNZ, all ran these race factor stories, and they are basically saying the same things! They also seem to have the same sources, 'organiser of the event' and the 'uproar' seems to be confined to their Facebook page! 

There have been no attempts to get comments from relevant authorities, or the local media to see if there is an 'uproar' over Torika's race. Truth be told, majority of people even residing in Suva are not aware of the Miss World Fiji pageant, let alone who won it.I have to commend  International Business Times  for their story. An example of good journalism in my opinion, cause they were not swayed by previous news reports of the event.

It almost seems like that whoever is feeding the race issue is trying to draw attention away from how the pageant was conducted. But it's good to see that despite what the  overseas media (the few that are reporting on the pageant) is focusing on, the local media and public are beginning to scrutinize how the pageant was run.