22 November 2008
Pan-Pacific publisher Moala tells the secrets of success
24 September 2006
By Ali Bell: Te Waha Nui Online
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Photo: Alan Koon
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When reaching a global community, Kalafi Moala, Tongan publisher and pan-Pacific media empire builder, says there are three important things – content, content, content.
Get the content right, he says, and everything else will follow.
It helps, of course, to have a message, or something to say, and a pressing need to communicate it.
Moala says that when given airtime in the United States and at home, some would-be Tongan broadcasters’ messages tended to be about God and the Bible.
As worthy a topic that is, he says, it seemed to lack drawing power in terms of news and entertainment.
“Content opens the doors to a good readership,” says Moala. “With good readership – the advertising will come.”
Prove yourself in one location, and then go global.
“Build relationships,” he says, mentioning all the weddings and 21st birthdays his paper has displayed in a photo gallery, and people will want to buy the paper, and keep buying it.
His paper has a distribution of 20,000 – 10,000 in New Zealand, and the other 10,000 in Tonga and elsewhere where Tongans want to read about news and news from home, mainly in Australia and the US.
Moala once jailed
Moala himself has been jailed for contempt of Parliament over content he published in his home country.
His independent newspaper Taimi o’ Tonga has presented views critical of many government ministries and is a staunch supporter of the pro-democracy movement in Tonga.
The paper became more and more popular as the pro-independence movement grew in the 1990s.
In his book, Island Kingdom Strikes Back, published in 2002, Moala describes a country “awash with scandals and scams - most, if not all, which [have] some connection to the monarch and royal-appointed government.”
He and his fellow imprisoned journalists were freed in 1996 and later won damages against the Tongan government for being wrongfully jailed, in violation of the constitution.
Their cause won a high profile among journalists and civil rights advocates in the Pacific, and a new policy of openness eventuated in Tonga after their fight for press freedom.
Moala is the owner of the Mali Media Group that publishes the Taimi o’ Tonga newspaper. In two editions twice a week, this paper is distributed in Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States.
His publishing empire has included the weekly Samoan International, Cook Islands Star and the Indian Tribune – currently the major selling newspaper in the New Zealand Indian community.
Hybrid local paper
Taimi o’ Tonga is described as a hybrid local paper, and a New Zealand newspaper with journalism staff in both Tonga and New Zealand. It is printed in Auckland.
It is published twice a week in the Tongan language and covers local news relating to Tonga and Tongans in New Zealand. It also carries international news, and about Tongans in Australia and the United States.
Moala says the two main emigrant groups – in New Zealand, and in the United States are quite a different readership with different concerns, and it is challenging to respond to those groups.
Innes Logan, editor of Spasifik, an Auckland-based magazine on Polynesian-New Zealand issues, also says content is vital in catering to an audience.
“We know our market,” says Logan, when talking about the big part of the Auckland population that are first generation New Zealanders with a Pacific Island background.
Tongans have adapted to their host cultures in different ways.
In New Zealand, Moala says, the focus is on education and quality of life generally, whereas in the United States “it’s the green stuff”, and entrepreneurial aspects of business building and investment can be the main point of interest.
Taimi o’ Tonga has expanded its news service to an online version, and to English language stories for non-Tongan-speaking readers and the many non-Tongan language investors. It was the first website developed by a news agency to provide news regularly on the Kingdom of Tonga.
Moala now lives in San Francisco and bases the Lali Media Group operations from there.
Links:
- Taimi o Tonga
- Island Kingdom Strikes Back
- Spasifik
- English language stories
