Fiji has recorded its highest-ever placing in the World Press Freedom Index, ranking 24th out of 180 countries, Fijivillage reported on 24 September 2026. The index is compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which publishes its score, rank and written assessment for each country it ranks on its own Fiji country profile. RSF says pressure on the media has eased since Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka took office.
Key facts
- Fiji is placed 24th of 180 countries, its best result in the index.
- The country ranked 40th in 2025 and 102nd in 2022, according to RSF.
- Fiji’s score rose from 71.20 to 76.76 out of 100.
- On the safety of journalists, one of the five indicators RSF uses, Fiji ranks 10th in the world.
- RSF credits the easing of pressure from civil and military authorities since Rabuka’s election in 2022, and the repeal of the Media Industry Development Act in April 2023.
- The Government says it remains committed to protecting media freedom and freedom of expression.
What RSF says changed
According to RSF, the improvement follows 16 years of what the organisation calls “recurring attacks on press freedom” by former Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama. Since the election of Rabuka as head of the Republic of Fiji in 2022, RSF says pressure exerted on the media by civil and military authorities has eased.
RSF singles out the repeal of the Media Industry Development Act, known as MIDA, in April 2023 as an important step forward. In the wording carried by Fijivillage, RSF describes that law as “draconian and unpopular”.
What the repealed law contained
RSF’s assessment, as relayed by Fijivillage, does not itemise which parts of MIDA it has in mind. The text of the Act itself, enacted in 2010 under the then military-led government, sets out what Fijian journalists worked under for 13 years.
The Act established the Media Industry Development Authority, a statutory regulator, alongside a Media Tribunal empowered to impose penalties. Under its penalty provisions, a media organisation found in breach could be fined up to F$100,000, while journalists, editors and publishers faced fines of up to F$25,000, imprisonment of up to two years, or both. The Act also restricted foreign ownership, requiring media companies operating in Fiji to be at least 90 per cent owned by Fiji citizens resident in the country — a requirement that forced a change of ownership at the Fiji Times. Enforcement of a media code of ethics sat with the statutory authority rather than with the industry.
Those provisions are drawn from the Act as enacted, not from the Fijivillage report or from RSF’s summary of it, and RSF has not said publicly which of them weighed most heavily in its scoring. Fiji News sets them out here because the source report identifies the repeal as decisive without describing what was repealed.
Advertising used as leverage
RSF also says that until recently, authorities used “discriminatory advertising practices to blackmail the media”, withholding advertisements and legal notices from outlets regarded as critical of the government. That characterisation — including the word blackmail — is RSF’s, as relayed by Fijivillage, not a finding of any court or inquiry named in the report. RSF cites examples from the period of the former FijiFirst government, including a preferential advertising allocation to the then pro-government Fiji Sun at the expense of the Fiji Times at the height of the pandemic, and the banning of the Fiji Times from distribution in several parts of the country in 2020 on the grounds that “the press is a non-essential service”.
Why it matters: analysis
The reading that follows is Fiji News’s own analysis of the RSF findings. It is not a claim made by RSF, by Fijivillage or by the Government, and it should be read as interpretation rather than reporting.
On our assessment, the two changes RSF points to operate on different parts of a newsroom. The first is commercial. If, as RSF alleges, government advertising and legal notices were once steered towards friendly titles and withheld from critical ones, then editorial independence carried a cost on the revenue line. RSF does not quantify that cost and neither can we; what RSF’s account establishes, on its own telling, is that the practice has stopped, not what it was worth to any publisher.
The second is legal. The penalty provisions set out above applied to individuals as well as companies. In our view, a statutory regime carrying personal fines and a custodial maximum is the kind of exposure that tends to be weighed before a contentious story runs — though neither RSF nor Fijivillage reports any instance of a Fijian journalist being imprisoned under the Act, and we have not established one.
Fiji’s separate placing of 10th in the world for the safety of journalists is the indicator that speaks most directly to conditions in the field. RSF’s safety indicator covers physical, psychological and professional harm to journalists; a high placing on it does not, by itself, describe the legal or economic environment, which is measured separately. Taken together, and on RSF’s numbers alone, the three points describe a press that the organisation assesses as freer to publish, less exposed commercially and safer in the field than it was four years ago.
How Fiji sits in the wider index
RSF’s own figures for 2022, 2025 and this edition — 102nd, 40th and 24th — amount to a climb of 78 places over four years, with 16 of those places gained in the past 12 months. That arithmetic is ours; the figures are RSF’s as reported by Fijivillage.
RSF’s published methodology scores each of the 180 countries and territories out of 100 across five indicators — political, economic, legislative, sociocultural and safety context — drawing on a questionnaire completed by press freedom specialists together with a tally of abuses against journalists. The combined result sets the rank, which is why a country can post a strong showing on one measure, as Fiji has on safety, while its overall placing sits lower.
The Fijivillage report deals only with Fiji’s own placings and does not set the result against other countries. RSF publishes the full 180-country table and each national profile on its own site, where the 76.76 score, the rank and the comparison with neighbouring states can be checked directly. What the report does establish is that a top-25 placing puts Fiji, on RSF’s measure, well clear of the position it held in 2022.
The Fijian Media Association and what RSF still flags
RSF names one domestic body in its assessment. Journalists’ interests are represented by the Fijian Media Association (FMA), which RSF says was often critical of the harassment of the media by the previous FijiFirst government and which, since the repeal of the Media Act in 2023, RSF says has worked hard to restore independent journalism and public trust in the media. The report does not set out what that work has consisted of, nor does it assign the FMA a share of the score.
RSF’s assessment also flags a problem inside newsrooms rather than outside them. It points to research published in the journal Journalism Practice in March 2024 which, according to the Fijivillage report, found sexual harassment of women journalists to be widespread and said the issue needed to be addressed to protect media freedom and the quality of journalism. That finding sits alongside, and is not cancelled by, the 10th place for safety from external threat.
Two further strands of concern have been raised elsewhere in the sector over the same period and are not part of RSF’s assessment: calls to protect Pacific journalists reporting on organised crime, and, at this year’s PINA summit, delays in the release of official information — a practical constraint on reporting that the index’s legal and political indicators would not necessarily capture. Training capacity has also expanded, with a new Pacific journalism centre at the Fiji National University in Savusavu. Neither RSF nor Fijivillage links any of these to the score.
Government response
The Government says it remains committed to protecting media freedom and freedom of expression, and to ensuring that a free and independent media continues to play its important role in Fiji’s democracy, according to the Fijivillage report. No further government measures were set out in the report, and the report does not name a minister or ministry as the source of that statement.
What is not yet clear
The Fijivillage report does not publish Fiji’s score on each of RSF’s five indicators, so it is not possible from that report alone to say which indicators lifted the overall score from 71.20 to 76.76; RSF’s country profile is the place that breakdown would appear. The report does not say whether the Government intends to act on the research RSF cites concerning women journalists, nor whether the FMA or the Government has any programme in place on that issue. It also does not record any successor framework to MIDA or any pending media legislation. Fiji News has not independently verified RSF’s characterisations of the former FijiFirst government’s conduct, and has approached no party for comment on them.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the Media Industry Development Act, and what did it require of journalists?
MIDA was Fiji’s statutory media law, enacted in 2010 under the then military-led government and repealed in April 2023. Its text created the Media Industry Development Authority as a statutory regulator, together with a Media Tribunal able to impose penalties. Under its penalty provisions a media organisation could be fined up to F$100,000, while journalists, editors and publishers faced fines of up to F$25,000, imprisonment of up to two years, or both. It also required media companies operating in Fiji to be at least 90 per cent owned by Fiji citizens resident in the country, and placed enforcement of a media code of ethics in statutory rather than industry hands. Those details come from the Act as enacted; RSF’s assessment, as carried by Fijivillage, calls the law "draconian and unpopular" but does not itemise which provisions it has in mind.
How did past Fijian governments use advertising against critical newspapers?
RSF, as reported by Fijivillage, says that at the height of the pandemic the then pro-government Fiji Sun received a preferential advertising allocation at the expense of its rival, the Fiji Times, under the former FijiFirst government. In the wording carried by Fijivillage, RSF describes authorities using "discriminatory advertising practices to blackmail the media", withholding advertisements and legal notices from outlets regarded as critical of the government. That characterisation is RSF’s; it is not the finding of a court or inquiry named in the report.
Was the Fiji Times ever blocked from distribution?
Yes. RSF says the Fiji Times was banned from distribution in several parts of the country in 2020, on the grounds that "the press is a non-essential service", according to Fijivillage’s report on the index.
How does RSF calculate a country’s press freedom score?
RSF’s published methodology, set out alongside the index on its own site, gives each of the 180 countries and territories a score out of 100 built from five indicators — political, economic, legislative, sociocultural and safety context. The indicators are assembled from a questionnaire completed by press freedom specialists, including journalists, academics and human rights defenders, combined with a tally of abuses and violence against journalists over the period covered. The combined score sets the rank, which is why a country can place high on one indicator while its overall position sits lower. Fiji’s overall score for this edition is 76.76, up from 71.20, and its 10th place for the safety of journalists is one indicator rather than the whole picture.
Where can Fiji’s score and ranking be checked directly?
RSF, known by its French initials and formally Reporters Without Borders, publishes a profile page for every country it ranks, including Fiji, and a full 180-country table on its own site; both carry the score, the rank and RSF’s written assessment. Fijivillage reported RSF’s assessment of Fiji on 24 September 2026, and that report is the source for the Fiji-specific detail summarised here.
