Media couple show the new confidence in the Solomons

Nina Ratulele
Out near Honiara International Airport, a star is rising. In thick bushland, John Lamani is building what will be a regional media leader.

Twin buildings are rising out of the undeveloped Lungga area between the international airport of the Solomon Islands and the Guadalcanal coast. Lamani calls them the Star Centre. They will be the hub of a multimedia operation unique in the region. They will house a modern web-press, printing the Solomon Star newspaper seven days a week, two radio stations, a commercial printery, Internet media and ultimately, it is planned, a TV station.

They will also link traditional media (newspapers, radio stations) with new media (the Internet and the digital age) in what is called convergence. For example, the radio stations will also broadcast online so Solomon Islanders around the world can tune in via the Internet. Even through their mobile phones.

Lamani’s brave multi-million dollar investment testifies to the new spirit and confidence in the Solomon Islands after the end of years of deadly and destructive ethnic conflict. It will help make Solomon Islands a regional leader in the convergence which is becoming the way of the media world.

The building of the Star Centre also underscores the triumph over tough times of managing director Lamani, his wife Catherine and their family-run company. They overcame pressures that would have closed many others businesses.

In May, the Solomon Star company celebrated its silver jubilee. It marked 25 years of publishing its flagship, the English-language Solomon Star newspaper. Government, business, and community leaders, diplomats, and regional media leaders gathered at the Honiara Hotel in Chinatown to toast the success of the Lamanis. That night they celebrated not just a business success story. They also celebrated the courage which kept the Star alive and publishing through the ethnic conflict and economic troubles of 1998-2003. There are many stories which illustrate the dangers and bravery of that time. But one typifies the spirit which now sees Lamani pressing ahead and building for the future.

It was told this way in a tribute to the Lamanis published in the 25th anniversary edition of the Solomon Star: “During the ethnic tensions there were many threats to them and the newspaper. Men with guns made it clear they did not like the independence of the Solomon Star nor the light it shone upon their dirty deeds. One day the men with guns rang John very, very angry over yet another report about them in the Solomon Star. (We’re coming to burn the Star down tonight,” said their spokesperson.

“You come, I’ll be waiting,” said John.

“John stayed at the Star in New Chinatown all night waiting for the gunmen. He was ready to defend what he and Catherine built. Prepared to defend their quest for the truth and their unswerving belief in the right of all Solomon Islands people to freedom of information and expression. The men with guns didn’t show up. Even men with guns know you don’t mess with a courageous newspaper couple.”

In another tribute, Archbishop Sir Ellison Pogo, the internationally respected head of the Church of Melanesia, said: “During the ethnic tension the newspaper suffered like all of us. It was under threat from both side of the conflict and it is a tribute to Lamani that it survived. Today it represents the best standards of the free press and it plays an important role in the fight against corruption and graft.”

With the investment in new buildings and equipment and multimedia convergence, the struggles of the early years and then the ethnic conflict seem long ago. In 1982, Lamani, a New Zealand trained journalist, had left the comfort of a Government media job to launch the Star. He believed the people of the Solomons, who had newly regained their independence from British colonial rule, needed independent sources of news and information.

He and friends started the Star as an A4 size weekly newspaper. What Lamani himself calls the struggling years were not easy. “There were mixed reactions both from the private sector and the government circles that the newspaper could not last even in the first three months of 1982. We borrowed old dusty Imperial typewriters left to be thrown away. Both typewriters had several missing keys in them. A camera that we borrowed too, had some defects in the lens. We wrote stories on clean pages of public notices pinned up from several notice boards in many government buildings.

But John and Catherine Lamani never stopped working, building the Star from once a week, to twice, then three times and then five. They bought an old wooden building in New Chinatown. They set up their own press to print the paper. They did commercial printing for businesses. They invested in a radio station. Today, in the bush out at Lungga, they are investing in the future. There are challenges ahead as the Solomon Star expands into new areas, new growth and new media. But don’t bet against the Lamanis overcoming the challenges along the way. This, after all, is a couple who started a newspaper company with old typewriters with missing keys and then overcame a deadly ethnic conflict.