THE Media Association Solomon Islands (MASI) will launch “Meet the Editors” – a weekly radio segment to be aired on SIBC on Saturday directly after the 7pm news.

The President of MASI, Mr Leni Dalavera, believes this is an important initiative for media in the Solomon Islands, and more importantly, for the people of the Solomon Islands.

“It is a very important initiative for the people of the Solomon Islands as this new radio segment ‘Meet the Editors’ will allow greater information and dialogue to occur within the community.

“It allows people to learn more about the major news stories of the week and to ask questions of the media on why they present stories the way they do,” Mr Dalavera said.

Mr Dalavera stressed that the “Meet the Editors” radio segment has a clear objective to improve dialogue and information sharing on key issues affecting the people of the Solomon Islands

“The new radio segment Meet the Editors has been established to encourage and facilitate open and constructive conversations between the media, to allow the media to update our people on key stories they are working on, and the decisions they have made in bringing that story to the people.”

Mr Ashley Wickham, CEO of SIBC believes this segment will help hold the media to account and allow the public to better understand the reasons why the media choose to run a story publically.

“This is an important initiative as it will in fact make the media more accountable.

“The media will need to explain why they ran a story a certain way and explain the decisions they made to get the story to print or on air.”

Mr Wickham highlighted that the media takes its job extremely seriously and the media is very careful in the decisions they make to get a story public.

“The media have an extremely important role to play in providing news and current affairs in a balanced and impartial way.

“The media takes its role extremely seriously and at SIBC we are proud of our long held tradition of bringing the news to the people.”

Ashley Wickham thanked the editors of the Solomon Star and Island Sun for agreeing to participate in this new segment.

Mr Ofani Eremae is pleased that the Solomon Star can participate in this initiative.

“We believe that our readers deserve the opportunity to learn more about the stories we print,” said Mr Eremae.

“Our readers want positive and open conversations – the people of the Solomon Islands don’t just want negative stories – they want to hear about the good things as well.

“At the Solomon Star newspaper, we have a proud tradition of bringing these stories to our readers.”

Mr Priestley Habru, from the Island Sun is pleased that its readers can gain more insights into their news.

“The Island Sun is proud of the work that we do and we look forward to taking our readers on a journey behind the scenes within our newsroom.

“We welcome the opportunity to discuss the philosophies we have at the Island Sun in bringing the news to the people of the Solomon Islands.”

Mr Dalavera explained that the objectives of the “Meet the Editors” can be linked back to the MASI constitution.

“In addition, an objective within the MASI constitution talks about –the promotion, observance and protection of human rights and liberties including the protection of the right of access to information. People have a right to be fully informed about the news behind the news.”

The MASI executive endorsed the formation of the “Meet the Editors” segment at their recent board meeting and encourage people to tune into Saturday night’s first show on SIBC at 7.15pm.

–MASI PRESS