Last Thursday 30 November 2023 I clocked out as an employee and editor of the Samoa Observer after five years and five months.

But I remember vividly my arrival in Samoa on Sunday 24 June 2018, having transited through Brisbane, Australia a day before from Port Moresby, the Papua New Guinea (PNG) capital.

Before flying out of PNG, some of my PNG media colleagues, after hearing of my upcoming Polynesian news adventure, were shocked that I got the job as an editor at the Samoa Observer newspaper. Their biggest concern was I opted to take myself out of the newsroom comfort zone of Port Moresby’s buzzing media sector – to work in a country that I knew very little about and was considered more of a holiday destination for tourists and international travellers.

“Alex, you are going to be on a holiday in Samoa, there’s nothing much happening there except for white sandy beaches,” a former journalist-turned-news-executive said just before I flew out.

Unsurprisingly, the 30-minute drive from the Faleolo International Airport to Apia at around 6 am that morning was perhaps the longest ride of my life, after I was picked up at the airport by the Samoa Observer’s Digital Manager, Jarrett Malifa.

“Did I make the right decision taking up this job in a foreign land and what will the newsroom be like for me being a non-Samoan?”

These were some of the questions that flashed through my mind as we made our way from Faleolo to Apia. But one question during the job interview, 4-5 months before I got the plane, was the catalyst for my decision to leave PNG and head 3,700 km east.

Samoa Observer Editor-in-Chief, Gatoaitele Savea Sano Malifa was part of the panel that interviewed me for the job.

“Alex, are you comfortable working as an editor for the Samoa Observer in a one-party State like Samoa,” asked the veteran Samoan journalist and poet and the founder of the award-winning newspaper.

Samoa Observer’s 40th anniversary

I answered the question in the affirmative, but it made a big impression on me, having already clocked 13 years in the PNG media sector including 4-plus years as the PNG Post-Courier editor. His line of questioning was an indication to me of the journalism values that he and the Samoa Observer have stood for throughout its 45 years of publishing.

I walked into the Samoa Observer newsroom on Tuesday 26 June 2018 to open another chapter in my journalism career.

Over a month after arriving in Samoa, the newspaper celebrated its 40th anniversary at the Sheraton Samoa Aggie Grey's Hotel & Bungalows. Government and business leaders as well as members of the diplomatic corps and friends and supporters of the Samoa Observer joined the newspaper staff at the celebration.

The anniversary celebration at that time was, perhaps, a reminder for our newsroom to be vigilant and to continue to play the watchdog role that epitomised the Fourth Estate. The expectations from the public and the readership – for the Samoa Observer to report without fear or favour and hold the government of the day to account – continued to rise amid a challenging political environment during the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) administration’s term of office.

If I were to choose an issue that has consistently made front-page news without fail over my five years as an editor at the Samoa Observer, it would have to be the national airline Samoa Airways. Unsurprisingly, the storyline had not changed much since the time of Gatoaitele, when he championed the call for accountability over the finances of the airline’s predecessor Polynesian Airlines.

Covering an epidemic and a pandemic

No one in any newsroom anywhere plans foresees covering a public health crisis such as a measles epidemic or a global pandemic such as COVID-19. But you have to be prepared and ready to take on the assignments at short notice, as any good newsroom of a daily newspaper should be.

Samoa Observer reporters rose to the occasion when health authorities began to tip off the newsroom on the early signs of a looming measles epidemic in the second half of 2019. When we broke the story of the first multiple measles infection cases in early October 2019, health authorities refused to give interviews to ensure there were timely updates to the media including this newspaper, often making it frustrating for reporters keen on ensuring there were follow-up stories on what was to become a full-on epidemic 1-2 months later.

By early January 2020, the Ministry of Health’s Health Emergency Operation Centre said there were 83 deaths from the measles epidemic, most of them children. Besides the 80-plus fatalities, the Tupua Tamasese Meaole National Hospital as well as the district hospitals in both Upolu and Savai’i recorded 1,860 measles cases with 1,761 or 95 per cent of the patients recovering. At that time the HRPP administration refused calls for a Commission of Inquiry into the 2019 measles epidemic, including from the Samoa Observer, following the emergence of evidence from a Commission of Inquiry convened in July 2018 that uncovered dangerously low levels of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination rate among Samoa’s children at that time.

The onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic in Samoa manifested itself locally through the Samoa government’s shutdown of its international borders and came on the back of the measles epidemic. The threat posed by the global virus and the disruptions that it made to the newspaper’s daily operations were some of the biggest challenges that I’ve ever faced. Navigating the multiple lockdown periods and getting local authorities to recognise the newspaper as an “essential service” during the pandemic became key to ensuring our readers were kept informed during that dark chapter of Samoa’s history.

The 2021 Constitutional Crisis

Months before Samoa’s General Election in April 2021, we noticed a growing shift in public support in Samoa for the newly formed Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party with hundreds turning up at their roadshows in the various districts on both Upolu and Savai’i.

However, the HRPP support base remained steadfast and unwavering in their loyalty to the party leader and veteran Lepa MP, Tuilaepa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi, who was prime minister at that time on the back of a Commonwealth record 22 successive years in office as head of government.

One of my Samoan newsroom colleagues told me he thinks a change of government in Samoa is on the horizon – due to increasing public concerns at the lack of transparency and accountability by the HRPP administration – but not from the 2021 General Election. I believed him too, based on my interactions with our readers, having already clocked three years with the newspaper.

But when the results from the ballots that were counted by the Office of the Electoral Commission (OEC) started coming through, after the general election day Friday 9 April 2021, we noticed a major shift in the public votes with FAST candidates beginning to pick up in constituencies that were traditionally HRPP strongholds.

When both major political parties were tied at 25 seats apiece with Tuala Tevaga Iosefo Ponifasio, who contested as an independent Member of Parliament, choosing the current FAST over the HRPP we knew Samoa was on the verge of creating history with its first woman Prime Minister in Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa. However, we did not envisage the country being plunged into a Constitutional Crisis with the then electoral commissioner, the caretaker prime minister, the Head of State as well as the former parliament speaker playing key roles in delaying the smooth transition of power to a newly-elected government.

I take my hat off to the Samoa Observer’s reporters who reported on the crisis at that critical juncture of Samoa’s history, who ensured that they interviewed the key players in the crisis on both sides of the country’s political spectrum and went on to write their stories under enormous pressure, despite the upheaval even in their homes or communities that were split by their allegiances to the two different political parties. Not forgetting the photographers at that time, who recognised the need to capture those historical events in pictures and video.

Following the intervention by the Court of Appeal and the installation of the FAST government led by Prime Minister Fiame, Samoa continues to see and attempt to address the residue that has flowed from the crisis more than two years later.

On that note, I take this opportunity to say fa’afetai tele lava to the Samoa Observer Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher Muliaga Jean Ash Malifa, for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be one of the editors of this esteemed daily newspaper for the last five-plus years. To my current and former Samoa Observer colleagues, thank you for adding value to my career through your support and camaraderie over the last five-plus years. God’s blessings for this festive season and a bountiful 2024 to the staff and management of the Samoa Observer newspaper.