Subtle editing means The National is not giving the full picture

PNGEXPOSED

Criticism of The National newspaper for its biased reporting and staunch defence of the logging industry is not new.

Everyone knows The National is owned by Malaysian logging giant Rimbunan Hijau who have a long history of illegal logging, corrupt deals and human rights abuses.

By last Monday we saw an interesting example of just how subtle their distortions can be.


On October 11, MP Belden Namah placed full page advertisements in both The National and the Post Courier newspapers. To the casual observer the text of both advertisements were the same, but in fact The National made two subtle changes to the text submitted by the MP.

First The National removed these words about controversial DEC Secretary, Wari Iamo “This is the same man who the Ombudsman Commission recommended should face expulsion from the public service for his involvement in illegal forestry allocations”

In fact the OC recommended Wari be removed for his involvement in illegal forestry allocations to RIMBUNAN HIJAU.

Not hard to see whose interests The National was trying to protect here!

Second, the National removed these words describing the thousands of unskilled Chinese workers flown in to Madang to work on the Ramu nickel mine “many of them convicts (yes criminals who have had the choice of either going to jail or coming to PNG)”.

Of course The National frequently publishes company propaganda from the Ramu mine as news stories and just two weeks ago ran an eight page supplement on the mine.

Rimbunan Hijau is also owned by Malaysian Chinese and ships 90% of the logs it takes from PNG to China.

Reputable news organizations always declare when they have a potential conflict of interest over a news story but The National never does – seeming to prefer to try and keep its manipulations strictly under cover.

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