Welcome to your new-look website samoaobserver.ws!

As you can now see, we have strived to produce a more dynamic format so that you can read your news from home and be informed about what is happening here, in a much more user-friendly environment.

What a great feeling it is to know we are now sending the news to you wherever in the world you are, in such a pleasing-to-read background? Still, it is just a part of the overall effort to maintain our service to you all by keeping abreast with the times. We say this knowing that in this shrinking world we call home, it seems rather silly to be left behind. Our hope is that you - the reader and viewer - are now finding out about what is happening each day in Samoa through your re-designed website in a pleasantly relaxed atmosphere.

Aside from the current news, editorial opinion, letters to the editor, viewpoints, sports news and much more, advertisements telling you about what is available in Samoa and elsewhere are also featured. What’s more, there is now a keener look at the regional and international awards that your newspaper has won over the years, complete with the awards’ images and some accompanying citations. (See Awards for details.) Let me tell you though that winning these awards would have been impossible had it not been for your relentless support and encouragement, for which we are eternally grateful.

Website designers

A word about your fantastic new-look website. It was created by our innovative master designers John Fuiava and Esad Bajramovic. Over the last two months, they have been devoting their expertise and creativity to this project.

Mr Fuiava graduated in 2004 from BYU Hawaii with a BSc in Computer Science and Information Systems. He then worked for the software company Rapid-Intake in Washington State while based in Honolulu; he was a member of a team that put together e-learning software for the computer giant, HP Hewlett. After the completetion of the HP Project he returned to Samoa and taught High School and School Certificate Computer Science and Technology at Vaiola College until 2007. Later he worked for Le Samoa Telephone Services and Le Samoa.net as a website developer.

Mr Bajramovic, on the other hand, is an Australian married to a Samoan. He has an Associate Diploma in Information Technology from Townsville Tech, and qualifications in Web Development from Central TAFE in Perth. Mr Bajramovic worked for Vodafone in Sydney for five years before moving to Samoa with his wife Noa in July 2007. Since arriving in Samoa, he has worked as a web developer, graphic artist and also a co-presenter of a weekly tv show.

Together, Mr Fuiava and Mr Bajramovic are a fantastically creative team.

The Samoa Observer is Samoa’s biggest group of newspapers producing three titles during the week. There is the Samoa Observer published from Monday to Friday, the Weekend Observer published on Saturday, and the Sunday Samoan on Sunday. It has been a daunting undertaking but having been producing these papers for some thirty years now, we feel that they have become part of the public that they serve. Which means we must continue to publish them no matter what, and to do so it is necessary to be flexible.

Ancient tradition

Unlike those papers produced in big cities with populations numbering scores of millions, the Observer newspapers’ circulations – distributed in a country with a population of just 170,000 - are relatively small. Combined however they attract a respectable weekly readership of some 350,000. Since all three titles are bilingual in English and Samoan, they are fairly well-read by the majority of the population living in rural areas including residents of the big island of Savaii. The reason the Observer newspapers have such a healthy readership though is pretty simple. The rural folks are still honouring the ancient tradition of sharing among the extended family and their neighbours. So that when someone makes the trip to Apia, he knows that one of the things he must bring back home is a copy of Samoa Observer.

This copy is passed around in the household, picked up by the next-door neighbour and passed through his household, and on to the next neighbour, and so on until the paper is worn out.

Today in Samoa, the Observer is the country’s market leader for news, sports and in investigative journalism. And as unshakable believers in freedom of expression and the public’s right to know, we have unfortunately been engaged in more stressful confrontations with the mighty and powerful than we care to admit. Along the way our efforts to maintain this stand in the face of legal threats brought by government officials has been a source of much frustration. I’ll tell you about that later. Still, we have no idea what we are going to do when one of these days the ink in the blood is dried up.

Fantastic journey

All we know is that despite the setbacks and the worries, we have had such a fantastic journey that even a whiff of regret is just not possible. We find that in the middle of even the most distressing of experiences, it is still possible to laugh at life and even at ourselves. Having said that, we pledge to continue serving the people of Samoa at home and abroad through these newspapers and our website as long as we can. But this service would be impossible had it not been for our staff’s commitment and dedication to work. Whereas our Editor Mata’afa Keni Ramese’s commitment has been as solid as a rock, Deputy Editor Alan Ah Mu’s dedication is without question. Together they have been leading a dedicated team of young men and women to continue to produce these newspapers consistently seven days a week without fail. They know what rising to a challenge really means.

To our readers wherever in the world you are, thank you for your enduring support. Samoa loves you all!

To our staff, we say thank you. Your commitment and hard work are an inspiration to us all. Malo le tau, malo le alofa ia Samoa.


Savea Sano Malifa
Editor in Chief