Interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry presented a paper to the National Council for Building a Better Fiji yesterday and stated that the media was imposing its own views on the people of Fiji and is therefore denying them the right to information.

While delivering the paper, Chaudhry said there was a noticeable arrogance in the way the Fiji Times, the Fiji Sun and Fiji TV were defying media code of ethics and their own code of conduct with the media watchdog, The Media Council, doing nothing about these breaches.

Chaudhry told the members of the NCBBF that Fiji was going through a fragile stage in its national development and cannot allow an irresponsible, immature and politically-biased media to create further divisiveness and instability.

Chaudhry highlighted to the National Council incidents where, he said, he was denied a right of reply on allegations leveled against him. He said that the dailies refused to print his letters to the editor to give his side of the story.

He questioned whether it was responsible journalism that the two dailies and were practicing and if the media was being held accountable.