Boost Pacific climate change 'frontline' coverage and analysis, PMC educator tells media

Pacific Media Watch

News media need to boost their coverage and analysis of Pacific environmental issues to meet the critical challenges facing the region, says a journalism educator.

Associate Professor David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre, told a creativity and climate change conference at the University of the South Pacific in Suva this week that most media were not doing enough about the issues.

With up to 75 million Asia-Pacific climate change refugees being predicted by 2050 by many science reports, news media needed to urgently “up their game” on environmental reporting.

Describing some of the environmental indicators confronting the region and the failure of Australia and New Zealand to adopt more radical carbon emission reduction targets and to give greater support to adaptation strategies in the Pacific, Dr Robie told the conference developing nations in the Pacific were in the frontline of global climate change.

News media needed to adopt “frontline” news reporting and analysis strategies to challenge policy priorities.

The survival of countries such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and remote parts of the Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Papua New Guinea and Tonga were at stake.

Climate change had the potential to have an impact on almost every development and poverty issue in the region.

Part of solution?
“So where does the mainstream media fit in the middle of this complex scenario and the digital technologies revolution? Is the media part of the problem or part of the solution?” Dr Robie asked.

“For the most part, it is probably part of the problem. The relentless pursuit of ratings, short-term circulation spinoffs, the dumbing down of content and ruthless cutting back of staff are examples of this.

“And there are many instances of poor editorial judgment or downright sensationalist opportunism that accentuate this problem.

“These frequently overshadow the times when the news media does a credible job and puts in considerable effort over public social justice and environmental issues and other agenda-setting reports such as climate change.”

Dr Robie talked of several innovative information initiatives on climate change and the effective use of social and independent media that challenges mainstream “sluggishness” on the issues.

He praised the experimental new media project headed by the University of Technology, Sydney, based on the website Reportage-Enviro www.reportage-enviro.com which is linked to the Global Environmental Journalism Initiative (GEGI) – run cooperatively by several international journalism schools – and Pacific Scoop.

Climate refugee film
One of the highlights of the conference was the screening of the new film There Once Was an Island: Te Henua e Nnoho directed by New Zealander Briar March, which tells the story of an isolated Polynesian community on Takuu Atoll in the Mortlocks in Papua New Guinea losing their culture and their homes as some prepare to relocate in Melanesian Bougainville more than 250 km to the south-west.

They are among the first of the climate change refugees in the Pacific and their on-screen story was greeted with emotion by the audience.

Picture: PMC director David Robie with staff and volunteers of the School of Language, Arts and Media (SLAM) at the conference farewell, University of the South Pacific, Fiji.

Boost Pacific climate change coverage on Pacific Scoop
More about There Once Was an Island
The USP creativity and climate change conference

Simbu highlands doco maker gives through training

By Josephine Latu: Pacific Media Centre

Award-winning filmmaker Verena Thomas hopes to give something back to the Papua New Guinean people who had welcomed her five years ago while filming a documentary in the Simbu* highlands.

Thomas, currently enrolled in a doctorate programme at the University of Technology, Sydney, is completing a pilot project to train Papua New Guineans through participatory filmmaking.

She spoke at New Zealand's AUT University during a special screening of her 2007 documentary, Papa Bilong Chimbu, hosted by the Pacific Media Centre.

The film portrays the life of her German great-uncle, Father John Nilles, who travelled to PNG in 1937 as a Catholic missionary, and made Simbu his home for the next 54 years.

“When I showed it to the locals I saw how excited people were about video and to see themselves on screen. I felt there should be more films about Papua New Guinea,” she said.

She is now working closely with Mike Mel at the University of Goroka on a project to train new filmmakers through a participatory approach.

They expect to produce at least three short films as an outcome.

Negative image
Thomas was also concerned about the negative image in the Australian media about their Melanesian neighbour.

“Australians don’t have a good idea of what Papua New Guinea is really like,” she said.

“What comes through the media is usually about Port Moresby and crime - bad things.”

Film was an “empowering” avenue for Papua New Guineans to tell their own positive stories.

Participants at the AUT screening also discussed the issue of development, highlighting the role of missionaries such as John Nilles and making comparisons to today.

“By and large, missionaries were in there for the long haul, not like some aid workers nowadays who come in for a short time, and then move on to the next job at the UN or World Bank,” said John Woodward, a member of the audience.

He had lived in Papua New Guinea with his family for seven years in the 1970s, setting up an electrical engineering department in one of the schools.

Verena Thomas added that for researchers, including filmmakers, there is a duty to consult and give back to the community being studied.

“You don’t just go in there. There are certain responsibilities you take on board when you do that,” she said.

www.papabilongchimbu.com

* The film’s title uses an older version of the province’s name – Chimbu rather than the present day Simbu. Picture: Verena Thomas at the Pacific Media Centre screening. Photo: Del Abcede.