Today we thank you The Fiji Times readers for believing in us and for appreciating our efforts to be a credible source of information.
Your confidence in our ability to provide news that is relevant to Fiji is overwhelming.
The Fiji Media Omnibus Survey has revealed that readers spend 68 per cent of their newspaper-reading time reading The Fiji Times.
This is 2.4 per cent times longer than reading any other newspaper. It tells us something. You the reader are finding interesting things to read in The Fiji Times, and our other publications - the Shanti Dut, Nai Lalakai and The Sunday Times.
The survey - conducted by Tebbutt Research in key urban areas in March covering media consumption using respondents 14 years and over - shows that 91.7 per cent of newspaper readers read this newspaper. Of this, 55.5 per cent read The Fiji Times exclusively and that 36.2 per cent of readers read The Fiji Times and another newspaper.
If by some little way we have helped you improve your life, learn something new, and brought happiness to you and your family, we are grateful and overwhelmed.
To be seen as anti-government or pro-government are charges that do us no favor as a responsible media organisation.
We would rather be seen as a newspaper that takes no side; simply a newspaper of integrity.
Our passion is to ensure our readers know we have a sense of fairness about us.
Our charter is to strive for accuracy and balance with the intention to do justice to every story we print and picture we use.
We are not anti-government and we are not pro-government. We are very, very pro-Fiji and living proof of this is our 142 year record as recorders of history in this nation. In short, we are The Fiji Times, neutral and striving to ensure any perception that paints us otherwise is easily washed off.
We will endeavour to make sure our readers see in us a newspaper that is easy to read, has entertaining and educational information and pictures, plus believability and authority.
We hope we can provide our readers with the opportunity to voice their opinions and point out issues that affect them. We hope we can be a vehicle for our readers to offer solutions to issues that affect our nation.
If by doing this, we can positively unite to develop our wonderful nation, then that is the reward your newspaper will appreciate.
We hope to continue to be your major source of information about what is happening in Fiji, the region and around the world.
We say thank you to the 97,792 readers who read The Fiji Times from Monday to Friday, to the 128,774 readers who read The Fiji Times on Saturday and to the 89,281 readers of The Sunday Times.