Fiji media review calls for 'proactive' role on standards

By Josephine Latu: Pacific Media Watch

An independent review initiated by the Fiji Media Council has called for serious improvements in the council’s operations.

The review, made public in Fiji last week, challenged the council to be more “proactive” in attaining journalistic standards, promoting ethical codes, and “to be seen as a body committed equally to press freedom and press responsibility”.

Recommendations include patching up an inefficient complaints process, dealing out tougher penalties as a self-regulatory body, hiring a permanent and paid executive secretary, and doubling its funding.

The Fiji Media Council initiated the review in response to public criticism, including a controversial and damning report by Hawai’i-based academic Dr James Anthony, organised by the Fiji Human Rights Commission (FHRC) in 2007.

The military-backed interim government last year vowed to introduce a media “promulgation” law and the draft is believed to be based in part on some Anthony report recommendations widely condemned by news organisations.

Written by three nominated consultants - Australian Press Council executive secretary Jack Herman, consultant on environmental issues Suliana Siwaibatu and attorney Barrie Sweetman - the new review was conducted during February.

The review team considered 26 submissions from members of the public, NGOs, members of government as well as media representatives plus other reports and documents.
The panel also conducted its own interviews.

While commending current council chair Daryl Tarte over his efforts, the review noted a strong dissatisfaction apparent in many submissions. These held that “the Media Council has not performed to its own high ideals”, especially over media responsibility.

The review noted that this was partly because of a lack of financial support for the council, but also “largely a result of the fact that the council has not pursued more vigorously, or adequately followed up, outcomes of the complaints process”.

It called for all media organisations to be more committed to upholding journalistic and ethical standards.

Key review recommendations include:

• Improving the complaints process by:
- Appointing a paid executive secretary to deal with complaints quickly and attentively;
- Offering face-to-face mediation as an alternative dispute resolution;
- Clarifying the basis of complaints;
- Supplementing adjudication with a "series of graduated penalties", including censure; and
- Allowing public members of the council to act as media monitors.

• Cultivating relationships with government in the interest of media freedom. The Department of Information, as a member of the council, also needs to use this opportunity to foster a positive relationship with media.

• More responsibility to the general public through:
- Promoting the council by reporting regularly to the public through NGOs, website and forums;
- Actively pursuing its own objectives of improving media standards and condemning ethical breaches; and
- Encouraging public members to raise issues of concern, and even act as mediators in the complaints process.

• Better administration through:
- Appointing a paid administrator (executive secretary) on a permanent part-time - but preferably full-time - position, along with an equipped office and on a fixed salary equivalent to F$20,000-F$30,000 a year;
- Revising the role of the council chair to play no part in the adjudication process, and fixing an
honorarium of F$6000-F$10,000 for the position.

• Recommendations for funding:
- Stronger support from media organisations in order to be effective. The review “does not think
the media meet their own standard for self-regulation at this time”;
- Double income (at least) by increasing fees, but still not relying on any government funding;
- Further pressure on non-member media organisations, including online news sites such as Fiji
Village and Fijilive, to join the council and support its aims through “fees and commitment”;
- Holding an annual meeting for member media organisations to discuss budget; and
- Looking to NGOs and national and international aid agencies for sponsorship of projects such as training and forums.

• Other recommendations:
- Current Fiji Media Council membership is 19. As membership increases to an unwieldy size,
this may be reduced to five industry members (one representing journalists themselves), five public members and the chair;
- Public membership should be advertised as widely as possible and nominees undergo a screening process;
- Representation of journalist and advertising associations on the council;
- Promote more media training and address journalists’ low starting salary;
- Clarify the council’s corporate status in the constitution – it should be a company limited by
guarantee rather than a company limited by shareholding;
- Campaign for a Freedom of Information law; and
- Encourage higher media standards as part of Fiji’s nation-building process.

Full text of the Fiji Media Council review at Pacific Media Watch

Quiet Papuan 'father' takes on military with his pen

By Jessica Harkins: Pacific Media Centre

At first glance, Father Neles Tebay isn’t the kind of man you would think is under military surveillance. He’s a “father” after all.

He’s not a vigilante, militant or “terrorist”. He’s a theologian and a writer – a good one. In Indonesia, this warrants being watched, constantly.

He doesn’t write about violence or retribution. Nor does he advocate these things.

Like many of his ilk, he writes about dialogue. Something people in the West often take for granted that everyone has an opportunity to share.

When did Fr Tebay first know he was “of interest” to the Indonesian government?

“In 1986, the Indonesian military went to a public market to ask about me. They asked: ‘Where is Neles?’,” he recalls.

“They already knew where I stayed - at that time I was a student.

“They did it in order to frighten me, or terrorise me.”

Did it work?

“No”. He pauses. “No I think they failed in this.”

Important role
Fr Tebay’s mission, under military scrutiny or not, is to raise awareness in his own community, and around the world, about the struggle for autonomy in West Papua.

He has no qualms about saying what he means.

Maire Leadbeater, a spokesperson for the Auckland-based Indonesia Human Rights Committee (IHRC) and a tireless activist in her own right, who met Fr Tebay just this week, says: “He certainly doesn’t mince his words.”

“Fr Tebay is taken very seriously in his country. His role is important.”

Fr Tebay’s main concern in his homeland is the apparent failure of Law 21/2001. This is supposed to have granted Papua province special autonomy from the Indonesian state to oversee its own affairs.

Despite this law, there are proposals to divide West Papua into four smaller provinces, and in recent months the military presence in Papua has been increased visibly.

Fr Tebay has said the move to further split Papua will “only serve the needs of new bureaucrats and would do nothing to address the pressing problems of poverty, an inadequate education system, environmental destruction, poor health care and the spread of HIV/AIDS.”

He adds: “Militarisation is going on. More troops are being deployed in West Papua, more military security posts are established. There are three more battalions, around 700-1000 more troops.”

He criticises the actions of the military, calling them arrogant.

“They can hit anyone, anytime, anywhere, with or without reason,” he says.

“It’s enough to say ‘he is a separatist’ and…”

“That’s why the Papuans are traumatised when they see the military,” he says.

Peace, justice
Fr Tebay is in New Zealand to take part in public discussion about environmental sustainability, as well as the issues close to his heart of peace and justice in West Papua.

Kevin McBride of the international Catholic peace organisation Pax Christi, which is hosting Father Tebay, is disappointed in media exposure about the issue in New Zealand.

“It’s virtually nil, but it’s hidden deliberately by the Indonesian government,” he says.

McBride says foreign journalists are banned from entering the province for “security reasons” - but that doesn’t mean they don’t try.

Four Dutch journalists travelled to the Papuan capital of Jayapura to report on an independence protest this week. They were arrested and detained at a police station for more than 12 hours.

One of the journalists has been released and has returned to Jakarta, but the other three still have not had their passports returned and are not allowed to leave Papua until police investigations into their reporting of a major Papuan demonstration calling for independence are completed.

They are also not allowed to report until the investigation is over, police say.

McBride says that on the Wellington leg of Fr Tebay’s tour of New Zealand, they will pay a brief courtesy visit to the Indonesian Embassy.

A search of the New Zealand Herald website for articles on West Papua yielded only one incorrect reference to plans for transmigration of peoples into West Papua.

Transmigration, a scheme by the Indonesian government to relocate poor people from over-populated areas of Indonesia to West Papua, was implemented in the 1960s and has now ceased - although there is still spontaneous migration into the area, according to Fr Tebay.

Suspect opinions
“When you want to raise your opinion, usually you are suspected of being a separatist,” says Fr Tebay.

He adds that the stigma of being a separatist is a risk factor for the Papuans, especially with the stepped up military presence in the region.

Over the years, Fr Tebay has written opinion pieces for the Jakarta Post, as well as news articles for some of his local newspapers.

Now he questions the impact of his writing.

“There is no guarantee. No guarantee that my articles would be read by the right people.

“I just wrote hoping that somebody would read it, or hoping that government people would read it, and that perhaps it would change their policy,” he says.

Maire Leadbeater says New Zealand should be able to play a role in independence negotiations because of our own colonial history.

“Historical grievances need to be faced,” she says.

“That’s why I get upset with our government sometimes,”

“We should be at the forefront in the push for justice in historical crime,” she says.

“They are immense crimes against humanity,” she says of West Papua’s history with Indonesia.

Sony Ambudi, also of the IHRC and the Mt Eden Islamic Information Centre, describes Father Tebay as an academic researcher and not only a priest.

“Being a researcher is fundamental in giving strong evidence on every human rights violation,” he says.

“He is a man in the field, a real campaigner.”

Fact file

The Indonesian policy on West Papua since the end of World War Two has been focused on Papua being part of its claim over former Dutch Territories.

In 1962, the Netherlands brokered a deal with the Indonesian government and handed the territory over, with the promise that in five years time the people of West Papua would be given an act of self-determination overseen by the United Nations.

In 1969, Indonesia and the UN conducted a referendum called the Act of Free Choice, now widely criticised as a sham and labelled the “Act of No Choice”.

Less than 1 percent of the population voted under severe duress and violent threats. The unanimous result? Stay within Indonesia.

The Free Papua Movement (OPM) has waged a sporadic guerrilla struggle since the 1960s for independence.

Photo of Father Neles Tebay by Jessica Harkins. Jessica Harkins is a student journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

A Neles Tebay article
Jakarta Post

Undersea volcano, climate change step up turtle worries

By Olivia Wix: Pacific Media Centre

An undersea volcanic eruption off the coast of Tonga this month worries marine biologists over a risk to Pacific feeding grounds for sea turtles.

The volcano spewed ash into the sea and into the air near the low-lying volcanic islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai.

The area is a common turtle feeding ground for some turtle species.

Massey University vulcanologist Dr Jerome Lecointre says an event like this can have severe consequences for species within the sea.

He says the eruption may have killed many nearby creatures.

“The eruption was sudden. There was no warning and people couldn’t do anything to lessen the impact,” he says.

Dr Lecointre says the heat of the water would be the most devastating to the marine life.

“At the surface it was boiling, it would have been much hotter in the sea,” he says.

The water continues to boil until the volcano stops erupting.

“It makes sense that the marine life would be killed. The eruption would have had much more devastating effects if it was land-based.”

Population decline
Sea turtle populations have been on the decline for years, although fears surrounding the impacts of climate change on them are only now being realised.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) believe an increase in extreme weather events, rising sea levels and increased temperatures are the main contributing factors towards the decline of the turtle populations.

The “red list” classifies all six sea turtle species in the Pacific as endangered. The leatherback and hawksbill species are considered critical.

SPREP and WWF predict that increased air and water temperatures would be the main climate related reason sea turtles become extinct.

SPREP’s marine species officer Lui Bell says warmer air temperatures increase the heat of sand. This can impact on the species as the temperature of the nests determines the sex of a turtle.

WWF South Pacific’s regional marine officer Penina Solomona says: “Research has indicated that climate change can influence the sex ratio of hatchlings.

"This means a hotter beach can result in the inundation of nests, further decreasing the number of hatchlings recruited into the population.”

Bell says the ideal temperature for incubation is 30 deg C. This means that if the eggs are buried in sand less than 30 deg C it will produce a male – higher will create a female.

Kelly Tarlton’s fish department team leader and turtle expert Nik Hannam says that as temperature rises more female turtles will be born.

“This is making them becoming the predominant gender.”

Bell says: “As more females will be born they will not be able to maintain their population for long.”


Sexual maturity
Research has shown that currently only one in 1000 turtle eggs will stay alive until sexual maturity at the age of 25 to 35. Bell says this will also play a major role in the declining population.

“Female turtles usually lay between two to five different clutches of eggs per nesting season, each having been fertilised by a different male,” adds Bell. This means that the amount of clutches a female turtle can lay will decrease.

Sea turtle conservation groups have discussed a strategy for when populations start to become predominantly female. In these situations, eggs would be incubated below 30 deg C to produce more males.

The warming of the sea has also had major implications for the turtles. Warming sea levels have caused extreme coral bleaching in South Pacific nations.

WWF says this will negatively impact on the sea turtle populations as many rely on coral as their main food source. Hatchlings will be most severely impacted, as coral is their main food source until they are old enough to migrate to bigger feeding areas.

The death of many young turtles has also been attributed to the warming sea. This means turtles venture further out of their normal migratory zones.

Hannam says New Zealand tends to end up with turtles from Australia and the Pacific.

The turtles that usually come to New Zealand are sexually immature (under 10 years old) and get caught in the trans-tasman current.

“The turtles get too cold, so end up with hypothermia and are too sick to return to their nesting and feeding areas,” adds Hannam.

He says this is where his team at Kelly Tarlton’s steps in. They care for the turtles and get them back to full health. They then release them when the waters are warmer and they are strong enough to swim back.

Nesting times
Sea warming also alters nesting times. The usual nesting times are from October to February.

Bell says turtles “sense when to nest by the temperature. When the seas become warmer the nesting season will be delayed, it will give them less time to lay their eggs.”

Rising sea levels and extreme weather events also play a major role in the future of the species.

During the 20th century, sea levels rose 15cm. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change indicates that this is expected to increase, with the Pacific islands being most severely effected.

Countries such as Tuvalu and Tokelau are among the worst affected – and both are common nesting areas for many sea turtle species.

Solomona says the rise in sea level can result in the overcrowding of nests which further decreases the number of hatchlings in the population.

She says that cyclones and king tides are among the most destructive extreme weather events that affect the turtle populations.

“Storm surges and strong tidal action only make the problem of habitat loss worse,” she adds.

Floods and tsunamis that hit the islands wash up turtle eggs buried in the sand and wash them to sea, potentially killing thousands of turtles.

Picture: Dizzy, a rescued green turtle found on a Northland beach and being cared for by Kelly Tarlton's marine centre. Photo: Olivia Wix.

Olivia Wix is a student journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

Underwater volcano erupts off Tonga - video
South Pacific spared quake damage
Undersea volcano erupts off the coast of Tonga - video

Publisher’s book 'speaks directly' to global Tongans

By Steve Chae: Pacific Media Centre

An outspoken Tongan journalist and publisher has released a new book that speaks directly to Tongan communities in New Zealand about the dilemmas of culture and the global diaspora.

Kalafi Moala’s book, In Search of the Friendly Islands, deals with core issues of violence and a vision towards peaceful change in the Tongan communities both inside and outside of Tonga.

“The title of the book is appropriate because the Tongan communities in New Zealand are still in search of peace and there are no answers yet,” said Rev Epeli Taungapeau, of Manurewa Methodist Church, who was at the book launch at the Onehunga Community Centre last weekend.

He cited the roadside shooting of 17-year-old Halatau Naitoko by police in Auckland earlier this year as an example of violence impacting on the community.

He was concerned about the violence people see in mainstream media, saying: “Tongan communities here have to search for ways to make New Zealand a peaceful island.”

In Tonga, violence has increased related to the struggle for democracy in the only kingdom among Pacific Island countries.

Since 1989, Moala has published a bi-weekly newspaper, Taimi ‘o Tonga (Times of Tonga), criticising the monarchy and advocating democracy.

Banned paper
This was banned for a period in Tonga but Moala continued to publish the paper in Auckland since 1995. It is now based again in the Tonga capital of Nuku’alofa.

Moala has lived abroad extensively in US and New Zealand, but now lives in Tonga. He has observed the diaspora of Tongan communities and the issues they are facing, including violence.

Moala said it was important to ask why this was happening and to think about the alternatives.
He believed it came down to the “character of the man”.

He said that Tongan people’s faith in religion in the time of a “culture of transition” will see Tongan communities move towards peace.

Tongan Advisory Council chair Melino Maka said the people wanted their community media to discuss more proactively all of the issues happening inside and outside of Tonga.

He believed expanding Tongan talkback radio was important as it was the most effective way to channel people’s voices on these issues.

Moala’s book will be launched in Tonga this weekend.

Picture: Tongan broadcaster and community advocate Will 'Ilolahia (right) shares a joke at the book launch. Photo: Del Abcede.

Steve Chae is a student journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

New website tackles high cost of Pacific money transfers

By Sylvia Giles: Pacific Media Centre

High fees for wiring money to the Pacific through banks or agencies such as Western Union erode the earnings of Pacific migrant workers.

A new website, www.sendmoneypacific.org has been launched this week as a New Zealand aid project in a bid to make savings for Pacific families and economies.

The new English-language website - a joint venture between AusAID and NZAid with the slogan “all the information you need to send money to the Pacific” - compares costs as well as time delays, exchange rates and transfer methods.

It shows, for example, that NZ$200, sent from New Zealand to Samoa with TSB Bank, incurs a fee of $65.37, while taking two to three days to be transferred.

Westpac, using the same search criteria, carries a fee of $5.98 and takes less than an hour with the use of a pre-pay card.

The website also allows users to sign up for updates for specific countries.

There is also a plan to move into print, across different languages, in order to target workers who don’t speak English.

Sendmoneypacific.org was launched at the Otara Markets by Pacific Island Affairs Minister Georgina te Heuheu on Saturday.

‘Safety net’
In a media statement, the minister described remittance payments as an important “safety net” for some families.

World Bank senior economist Dr Manjula Luthria says money-transfer companies took $190 million from the remittances flow to the Pacific in the past financial year.

The World Bank website cites international best practice as having remittance fees between one and five percent. Money roaming the Pacific, from New Zealand and Australia, incur fees on average between 15 and 25 percent.

The former Labour-led government announced last August at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in Nuie that its aim was to bring fees to between 5 and 7 percent by 2009 through increased regulation.

However, the new policy under the present government leaves the fate of these fees to the market.

According to sendmoneypacific.org, figures reveal the remittances income as a staple, rather than disposable income as it may be perceived to be.

Remittance payments make up 24 percent of Samoa’s national gross domestic product, bringing the country $128.2 million a year. It is their single biggest source of income.

In Tonga, remittances are equally crucial. In Fiji, since the collapse of both the tourism and sugar industry, remittances bring in more income than the two industries combined.

In-kind transfers
Remittances are defined by the World Bank as “transfers of cash formal and informal, households’ bills paid by the migrant to a third party, and in-kind transfers”.

In a report released in 2006, research carried out in Tonga and Fiji showed that 79 percent of remittances were cash transfers.
In Tonga, 75 percent all remittances were made through fee-based bank or “other” money transfer agencies (such as Western Union).

In Fiji, 69 percent of remittance payments were made using these channels.

In the past, there has been little alternative for the speedy transferring of money.

Remaining forms of transfers were listed as money being physically transferred by the migrant or a friend or a visit to migrant, through a shop, through the mail or “other”.

However the use of these methods was high enough for the World Bank to note that any “official” figures, compiled by banking networks, were unlikely to be truly reflective of actual figures of remittances reaching the Pacific.

Sylvia Giles is a student journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

Send Money Pacific

Review: Master storyteller's challenging vision

In Search of the Friendly Islands, by Kalafi Moala. Hawai'i: Pasifika Foundation Press, and Auckland, NZ: Pacific Media Centre (AUT University).
ISBN 978-1-877314-75-9. 148 pp.

Reviewed by Josephine Latu: Pacific Media Watch

Kalafi Moala is no stranger to confrontation. He spent 26 days in prison for contempt of Parliament in 1996, along with MP ‘Akilisi Pohiva and fellow journalist Filo ‘Akau’ola. The ruling was later overturned as “unconstitutional”, but this didn’t stop the government from systematically banning his newspaper, Taimi ‘o Tonga, from the kingdom - twice.

Before that, the Taimi team had suffered numerous raids, arrests and threats at the hands of the authorities.

Things have changed since these landmark crackdowns on media freedom - Moala has now taken over the government-owned Chronicle as one of his projects – but as his new book proves, the man still has an uncompromising propensity to "tell it like it is".

In Search of the Friendly Islands, his sophomore publication, is sure to make waves - and not only with the governing authorities. It is a jolting dose of realism for any Tongan.

The title addresses Moala's scepticism with the myth of a perpetually serene and culturally idolised “Friendly Islands”. Instead, the Tonga he portrays is a problematic site of contested power, tangled by the influences of modernisation and globalisation.

In less than 150 pages, the book probes the gross contradictions found in Tongan culture - chronic violence, elitism, and religious hypocrisy, among others, interweaving historical accounts, philosophical reflections, and political analysis with lucid real-life stories. It’s what Moala calls the “Pacific mode of story-telling”.

He argues that the traditional Tongan culture is rooted deep in a system of domination and oppression. But importantly, more than just politics, it involves the power of “men over women, parents over children, aristocrats over peasants, nobles over commoners, teachers over students, priests and ministers over laity, and rulers over people” (p. 31). It’s how Tongans relate to the world.

Cultural brutality
This ideology of domination-oppression has inspired the violence common in both Tongan history (the "Dark Ages" of bloody civil war) and today’s communities. The very first pages vividly recount actual stories of such cultural brutality.

“Social conditioning” drives it home, and from a very young age, a Tongan child will learn that there is a pecking order, and everyone knows their place.

Yet, in a grim twist, Moala spends a chapter discussing how the “oppressed became the oppressor” during the notorious 16/11 riot of 2006 that destroyed 80 percent of the capital’s business district and left eight people dead. A long-time champion of reform, he explicitly denounces members of the current democratic party, as well as the foreign press who persist in portraying them as “the” voice of the people.

"Parachute journalists" ignore all the knotty facets in Tonga’s political movements - break-away parties, factions and turncoats – let alone understand the role of culture.

However, any Tongan is vulnerable to moral corruption and self-interest, and Moala follows with many an amusing anecdote that show the ambiguity of Tongans towards certain "Christian" or "traditional" fundamentals. For instance, forms of “trickery” or deceit are often condoned – if you can get away with it.

Meanwhile, Chinese immigrants are heavily discriminated against precisely because they are stereotyped as “cunning”. Ironically still, at the macro-level, Tongans rely on huge injections of aid from the Chinese government, in a relationship that will likely be permanent.

Moala continues to probe Tongan politics and society and the last three chapters of the book deal with the hefty issues of culture, social structure and spirituality. His challenge is to approach reform at a deeper level of ideology and psyche.

The key problem is not the lack of seats for People’s Representatives in Parliament, but the mentality that had normalised this system for years - one steeped in a culture of domination and oppression, and still very much around.

Soul-searching
For Kalafi, political reform can only fully come about with cultural reform, and it can only be successful through soul-searching at a spiritual level.

In Search of the Friendly Islands is a courageous book with an essentially positive message – one that heralds change. It will likely garner some disapproval because it is so candid (as professor Ian Campbell speculates in his foreword – “many Tongans will be embarrassed by what Kalafi has to tell them”).

Who would be proud of “the incompetence of Tongan clergy and community leaders” to deal with domestic violence (p. 25), or child-rearing habits that yield “Tongan kids [who] do not argue; they just attack each other” (p. 28)?

However, Moala’s clever style is not to simply state his opinions as truth. A master storyteller, he provides personal stories and incidents well-known in the community, and asks, "well don’t you see it too?"

It takes a degree of guts to bring one’s own views to the public forum, and invite debate and much-needed dialogue.

After all, what Moala sees as “deceit” among Tongans, others may see as resourcefulness - a resistance to the moral regime; what he sees as political self-ambition, others may see as vital radicalism; and while much of his descriptions appear to be about Tongans "in general", others may wish to avoid generalisations about any culture. There are always pockets of resistance to any status quo – Moala himself represents one of them.

He rightly points out that “culture is not God Almighty” (p. 111). One will always find contradictions as old becomes new, young becomes old, ideas are borrowed while others are lost.

The challenge for modern Tongan culture is how our people can adapt to these changes in a way that is safe, productive and constructive for everyone. There are questions to ponder together - what traditions should be kept and what can be done away with? Should Tonga immediately "cut and paste" a foreign model of democracy? How can leaders effectively convey changes to the masses?

As a Tongan, reading this book was wholly engrossing - but not because I agree with everything Moala writes. The most important contribution of this book is that it encourages the reader to look beneath the surface, inviting different interpretations and reactions that will hopefully result in dialogue.

The issues - moral, cultural, political - are apparent in any society faced with globalisation and development. However, people need to be encouraged to question why things are the way they are and whether there are different solutions.

Josephine Latu is contributing editor of Pacific Media Watch at AUT University.

In Search of the Friendly Islands is available from:
Pasifika Foundation Press, Hawai'i, or
Pacific Media Centre, RRP NZ$34.95

New book by former Tongan dissident
Media crusader's blighted dream

Bennett gives new Indian paper full marks

By Kara Segedin: Pacific Media Centre

New Zealand’s newest ethnic newspaper was launched to a rave notice from Social Development Minister Paula Bennett at the weekend in Waitakere City.

“It’s very informative and has the sort of light-hearted information we want,” she said after being presented with the first edition of the Indian Weekender.

The launch was part of Race Relations Day celebrations to mark the Holi Mela festival at the Trusts Stadium. Bennett is also MP for Waitakere.

The Indian Weekender is a free, English language newspaper covering stories of interest to New Zealand’s Indian community and the general public.

Editor Dev Nadkarni said organisers have been busy planning the paper for six months.

He said the paper would cover India and many other countries where there is an Indian diaspora.

Along with several Auckland-based reporters, the paper has put together a group of experienced foreign correspondents who will write exclusively for the Weekender.

Currently printed fortnightly, the paper will eventually become a weekly publication.

Shared culture
Nadkarni, who has lived in Fiji, said the Weekender’s main audience would be people of Indian extraction who shared Indian culture and values, but not necessarily from India.

“People have been living out of India for as many as four or five generations,” he said

There is a substantial market within the Indian community.

In the 2006 Census, 104,583 people identified their ethnicity as Indian, with 71 percent of the population living in the Auckland region.

“While there have been media outlets catering to Indians we thought that there was a gap in the market - both in content and the way that news and information is presented,” Nadkarni said.

The Indian publishing industry is highly advanced, with many publications tied to international brands such as the Washington Post, Financial Times and the Daily Mail.

“They have a very high standard of both journalism and layout, which has been sadly lacking in publications directed at Indians in New Zealand,” he said

Nadkarni said New Zealand’s existing Indian publications look dated and seem to be “stuck in the 1970s”. The team wants to bring New Zealand-based publishing on a par with Indian standards.

Nadkarni wanted to make the content accessible and user friendly.

“People don’t have time to read 2000 word articles,” he said. “In this day of txt and the internet, we are really looking at shorter stories, pieces that drive home the point and add value to a typical migrants’experience here in New Zealand.”

More colour
With an emphasis on original stories, pictures and colour, the paper will give readers information from New Zealand and their countries of origin.

“Our stories are going to be more focused. It’s going to be variety family reading for the weekend.”

So far the response from the community has been positive. “It’s been in the market only three days, but we’ve already run out of copies,” said Nadkarni.

Bhav Dhillon, a director of the publishing Kiwi Media Group, said the positive feedback was “a lot more than what was expected - people are impressed by the look and feel of the paper”.

His first time in the publishing industry, Dhillon’s responsibilities include finances, organisational management and distribution.

Dhillon said the paper would be stocked at 85 locations around the Auckland region, with plans for up to 1000 door-to-door deliveries

It is expected the paper will also be available in Hamilton, Tauranga, Napier, Hastings, Wellington and Christchurch.

Dhillon said plans for a website were underway and this was expected to be running in several weeks.

Publisher and director Giri Gupta said that while most community papers were run by a couple of people adopting a “cut-and-paste” process to creation, the Indian Weekender was a team effort.

The paper’s goals were to “increase frequency, circulation, and pages numbers,” he said.

Two purposes
Melissa Lee, National MP and former television broadcaster, said cultural newspapers like the Indian Weekender are important.

“They reflect the views and opinions of the community,” she said.

In the case of the Indian Weekender, Lee said it served two purposes. Not only did the paper reflect the Indian community’s needs, but as it was published in English it gave other New Zealanders a better understanding of the Indian community.

Lee would like to see increased interaction between the ethnic and mainstream media.

Associate professor David Robie, director of AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre, said the challenge for new community papers was identifying what the community wanted.

“There seems to be a mood that a more positive paper is needed than they’ve had in the past,” said Dr Robie.

“I think the first edition looks fairly promising. It’s bright and it’s got a range of different topics.”

As with new publications the stories were light - “it takes a while to bed down to getting some of the hard stories. But I think that will come,” he said.

One of the strongest factors in the paper’s potential success was the talented and experienced individuals in charge.

Nadkarni was head of journalism at the University of the South Pacific, is a respected business journalist and is involved with the Islands Business magazine in Suva, Fiji. Chief reporter Ranjit Singh was a former publisher of the Fiji Daily Post and currently contributes to a number of publications.

As with any publication, the future of the Indian Weekender is tied to its economic success.

Marginalised
“Community papers seem to be the most successful in NZ at the moment,” he said.

Dr Robie said most ethnic communities were marginalised by the mainstream media.

“The mainstream media doesn’t do a good job reporting important issues for the communities,” he said.

This means Auckland’s 75,000 strong Indian community is not given enough voice.

“The best thing that mainstream media can do is actually have newsrooms that reflect the communities around us,” said Dr Robie.

He said the challenge for mainstream media organisations was to go out and get more ethnic journalists.

He said journalism schools also had an important part to play - “they’ve actually got to put a lot more effort into attracting an ethnically diverse range of students.”

Picture: Social Development Minister Paula Bennett with editor Dev Nadkarni (centre) and publisher Giri Gupta. Photo: Kara Segedin.

Kara Segedin is a student journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.