Vanuatu Publisher Rejects Biased Reporting Claim

Vanuatu Publisher Rejects Biased Reporting Claim By Pina Chief
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=59245

PORT VILA (Radio NZ International/Pacific Media Watch): A Vanuatu newspaper publisher, who alleges a cabinet minister led an assault on him, has criticised a regional media body which suggested the attack may have been prompted by biased reporting, reports Radio NZ International.

The publisher of the Vanuatu Daily Post, Mark Neil-Jones, says he was violently attacked when the Minister of Public Utilities, Harry Iauko, barged into his office last Friday with a group of about eight men.

They were angry at criticism of him that had been published in the paper.

The president of the Suva-based Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), Moses Stevens, has condemned the attack but he also says it is alleged that biased reporting prompted it.

Neil-Jones dismisses this.

He says the report the paper carried was a column by Transparency Vanuatu, the local branch of the global anti-corruption agency Transparency International.

Neil-Jones says this column is an opinion piece, based on the organisation’s own research and had been vetted by their lawyers.

He says other pieces the Daily Post had run on Iauko did not require comment from the minister.

ENDS

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