BACK in the days of typewriters, the newsroom was the noisiest department in The Fiji Times, said Anare Ravula, editor of The Fiji Times’s sister newspaper, the vernacular Nai Lalakai.
It’s probably still is today with phones — mobile and landlines alike, ringing almost endlessly amid telephone interviews of different vocal volumes across the room, or callers tipping us off with what we call newstips, and reporters — some of us self-taught in shorthand to the point where we create our own style of the same — banging away at the keyboard, in our bid to meet the daily deadlines.
From tape recorders, we now use digital recorders. Still on the issue of noisiest department, there is the television screen switched on in one corner, and two radios at different ends of the ever growing and sprawling newsroom — both, most times, tuned to two different airwaves, and even more noise emanating from the happy editorial team dining comfortably as a family in the cosy department kitchen.
Against this backdrop, Ravula, one of the longest serving journalists of The Fiji Times, explains the transition, as he witnessed, from typewriters, and the cut and paste process to computers and the constant upgrading of computer software programs to make our work easier.
“Being among the young and old experienced reporters with the humble Vijendra Kumar (former editor) at the driver’s seat of the newsroom, I was privileged to work with a mix of personalities, races and interests, in the news team,” Ravula said.
Kumar was editor of The Fiji Times from 1975 to 1991 before he resigned to take up a post at The Courier-Mail in Brisbane where he now lives in retirement.
According to Ravula, the Nai Lalakai and the Shanti Dut sections of the newsroom were the noisiest corners as typewriters were put to good use from morning to late at night, day after day.
“Stories were typed on copy paper which was then taken to the typesetters to be typed and printed out to be handed to the paste-up to be cut and pasted on the page provided with the layout that had been prepared earlier by the editor. “It’s hard to describe, exactly, the experience of watching a story being transacted and transformed in the span of three minutes.
To see the quick trust and connection that develop between storyteller and typist. To recognise that something intimate has transpired, a kind of contact that transcends touch but is nevertheless deeply touching,” Ravula said.
More than anything, Ravula loves the thrill of using the old typewriter, which, in his words, provides “a history of my engagement with the print media”.
He has travelled extensively across Fiji through mountain ranges and treking down steep cliffs, to sailing the maritime islands of the country.
“When I am re-telling someone’s story, I feel like a guardian of a delicate little jewel. This provides a feeling of satisfaction when completing a story to be puiblished.”
He has seen the layout of the paper change over time.
Ravula recalls the stiff competition the Nai Lalakai faced from its rival vernacular Volagauna newspaper.
“But they bowed out. The Fiji Times competed with the Fiji Sun based at Lami but the latter was shut down. The Fiji Times, under new management, was transfomed with fresh ideas on news coverage, design and promotions.
“The introduction of Fiji Sixes by publisher at the time Dallas Swinstead, a veteran journalist from the Melbourne Herald editorial team, attracted wide public participation.
“One of his biggest successes was the Fiji Times Fun Run in which hundreds of people participated annually. These initiatives helped to boost sales and lifted the public profile of the paper,” Ravula pointed out.
The Fiji Times has since changed hands thrice since it changed its name – a name it has maintained since R.W.Robson’s ownership. It was bought by the Wilkie Group of Melbourne, then by the Melbourne Herald and Weekly Times and in the early 1986 by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited.
In September 2010, the Motibhai Group of Companies bought The Fiji Times Limited to make it a locally owned newspaper.
After the 1987 military coup, Geoff Hussey was sent by News Limited to run the company as managing director during what Mr Ravula described was a “very disturbing period”.
“During that time of great uncertainty that gripped the nation through the events of the country’s first military coup, experienced Hussey laid a platform of a major modernisation and acquisition programme,” Ravula said.
That shaky period marked a historic change for the Fiji Times by way of the introduction and arrival of what – at the time, was “
“new technology”, in the form of computers.
Ravula and staff of the Fiji Times had the honour of meeting Rupert Murdoch when he visited Suva soon after the Sitiveni Rabuka-led military coup in 1987.
“He was accorded a traditional ceremonial welcome and mingled with staff,” Ravula recalls.
He said the present regime-enforced sale of the Fiji Times was at a critical time for the fate and security of jobs at the country’s oldest newspaper.
“The government has imposed a censorship regime on all media. The Fiji Times has been singled out and been deprived of all advertising from the government and its statutory bodies.
“The chief executive of the Motibhai Group, Mahendra Motibhai Patel, comes in facing a daunting task of mending fences with the government. Patel has been a member of the board of directors of The Fiji Times for more than 40 years and was familiar with the running a media company,” Ravula said.
And while we have moved in to an electronic era where young people are more at home getting news through Blackberrys mobile phones and computers, Ravula echoes the sentiments of his colleagues in what is almost a certain thing.
“With the many changes witnessed along the years, there is much hope that the Fiji Times Limited will rise to new heights in years to come.”
