www.lifhaus.com.sb

Yes i used to be very frustrated with Solomonstar online webpage.

Probably its also time, Lifhaus did its long promised make over.  Congratulations to the Star for improving its site. Its clean, it provides a summary of most things we would look for.   Looking forward to Solomon Times online.

It is well and good Solstar had a new facelift on their website. It demonstrates that our media outlets are developing and showing professionalism. It also shows that as a developing country as far as media is concern we are progressing well.

My only issue is that Solomon Star needs to seriously look at its reporters and journalists. One thing for sure is that a good number of their journalists are mere "observer reporters". What is meant here is that they only observe and listen from a distance and as a third party and do their reporting. There are times when they group up with several people for casual talk, and the next time one realize that casual talk become news headline on print paper. I would say that is not constructive or investigative journalism.

No one can deny that they are the leading daily newspaper in the country. But the thing is Solstar needs to seriously consider qualified, experience journalists instead of dropouts. SOlstar is for sure an important news informant to people living in Solomon ISlands and overseas.

our journalists will evolve...hopefully they will grow out of it...

I am appalled by the lack of constant checks to ensure that the stories written meet a high standard but after contributing to Lifhaus for the past 6 months I admit that we at Lifhaus also find it difficult to spot basic errors....BUT there is no excuse for bad writing and at times there are some very badly written reports that find their way into the papers... And we pay $5 for it!!!.....what we want is less errors.

I used to enjoy reading the online version because I was told that the news items were uploaded in Sydney after being corrected for grammer and spelling...now the same lack of scrutiny placed on the written paper has also found its way into the website....becos that is no longer done I am told.

If you ask me, unfortunately, competition has not made any difference in the media industry when the competitors are equal....Solomon Express is bad, Solomon Star is bad and Island Sun is just as bad......what we need is for one of them to set the standard! hopefully, having a great website is the start!!!

I do agree with seuniu.

Solstar website smells attracting with rainbow fragrant colors. The arrangement is also done that allow viewers to surf with ease to subjects of interest. But like what Seuniu pointed out, what impact will that have on the level of information to consumers when articles are baseless, evidenceless thus hopeless.

I can 100% tell that majority of Solstar's Political news items are "cut and paste". Is it because it became daily that reporters now have insufficent time to create quality articles?

I must admit that at the end of the day what is most important is not a colorful website but a quality website. A website that produces constructive reporting.

Yep, the new online version is much better than the last version. They have also started uploading the articles a lot faster (rather than leaving it 'till later in the day - JL used to think that no-one would buy the paper version if they could look at it online). One thing that is annoying is that they don't put ALL the paper's articles online too. I put up and maintained the original online version of the Star and used to have admin access - if the spelling or grammar were really bad I used to be sneaky and get online and change it. It really annoys me that there is not someone who is the final 'gatekeeper' for all articles so that they are checked for spellings and grammars with the furnitures, fishes and sheeps!!!

Oh, and another thing. The Solomon Star reporters do not do any analysis of the news - merely report it. I'm sure this stems from the old days when polititians used to ring up and have a story pulled or altered (a senior female reporter for SIBC told me about this). None of the reporters put two and two together, or ask why something is happening, or challenge any polititian on the decision they made and why they made it. Bring back Iroga!!!

I am not a journalist and I'm not trying to be one here but I just like to offer my kind advice to the interesting discussions going on in this forum.
I would suggest that Solstar involve its journos in investigative stories that worth knowing by the community.
Issues like an indepth finding behind Honiara's waste problem would draw lots of attention. While that is just one issue, Solstar must start looking other means to deliver.
 
Just thoughts....

Good to see PMC website back up too - hey GrafixFarm, you should have asked me about the material from the old website - I did that one too and have copies of all the old material!!! (hmmm, somewhere...)