The Chronicle of Higher Education (USA): 14 July 2000
MEDIA: NEWS OF FIJI, BY WAY OF FLINT
How an American professor in graphics design helped Wansolwara newspaper beat an attempted gag to prevent its special edition of the Fiji crisis reaching the Pacific university community and general public.
By BARBARA J. KIVIAT
MARA J. FULMER didn't help Fijians get on the World Wide Web so that the
island nation could advertise its white-sand beaches and Pacific
sunsets. Her motivation was nothing less noble than preserving freedom
of the press.
In late May, because of continuing civil strife, the University of the
South Pacific shut down its journalism program's Web site, including
the online version of Wansolwara, the quarterly student newspaper.
A rebel attack on a local television station had prompted the Fijian
university to suspend publication of the paper, which had just sent to
the printer the June edition, reporting on how an indigenous-Fijian group
was holding government officials hostage.
As the days passed, news-media groups, journalism schools, and
professors around the world decried what they viewed as an unwarranted
clampdown on free speech. But in the end, it was Ms Fulmer, a professor
of graphic design at Charles S. Mott Community College, in
Flint, Mich., who got the paper back up and running - at least online.
Ms Fulmer, who was an instructor with the Pacific university's journalism
program three years ago, contacted professors there and
agreed to receive e-mail attachments of stories and set up the June
edition on her own Looking Glass Design site until the
university allowed the paper to go back online a month later.
She is modest about her role, calling it "mostly providing moral
support."
David Robie, a senior lecturer and coordinator of the Pacific
university's journalism program, calls the arrangement "an excellent
case study
of how international cooperation can beat Internet gags."
Copyright © 2000 by The Chronicle of Higher Education