Thursday, June 19, 2008

Yvonne joins PMC team for a week

By Dominika White: Pacific Media Centre
Yvonne Sargayoos is getting a taste of Pasifika as a student journalist at the Pacific Media Centre this week – and she hopes this will help provide a ticket to a career in international reporting.
Completing her postgraduate diploma in journalism at University of Canterbury this year after earlier completing a degree in political science and mass communications, Sargayoos volunteered for the first internship after hearing about the new AUT University-based research centre earlier this year.
After being involved with Te Amokura – the red-tailed tropic bird, as the centre is known - for only three days, Sargayoos says she has already built up more contacts than during her first semester at university and is enjoying the experience.
Sargayoos, 23, says she has also gained knowledge about the Pacific region - something she believes is important for New Zealand journalists. Full story and photo by Dominika White.

Pacific Media Watch - an antidote for parachute journalism

By Dominika White/Pacific Media Centre www.pacmediawatch.aut.ac.nz
Parachute journalism is inevitable, says Scoop.co.nz co-editor Selwyn Manning. However, he believes AUT University’s unique new media database may help provide more depth to covering Asia-Pacific issues.
The DSpace digital database, named Pacific Media Watch, was launched by AUT’s Office of Pasifika Advancement director Pauline Winter on June 9.
Manning says it is an “exciting” resource that contains accurate information for journalists to use and will help the quality of regional journalism by identifying issues in topics in which journalists have little knowledge.
Manning’s own experience in Fiji in 2006 proved to him how valuable online information is to international journalists.