Pacific journalists visit PMC on MFAT exchange

Pacific Media Centre

Two Pacific journalists, along with representatives from the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) met with the Pacific Media Centre team on Thursday June 24th to build networks and get familiarised with the centre's activities.

Editor of the Samoa Observer Mata'afa Keni Lesa and Cook Islands News political journalist Nerys Chase were accompanied by senior diplomat and director of the Auckland MFAT office Warwick Hawker and senior policy officer for the Pacific Division Helen Tunnah.

Matangi Tonga photojournalist Linny Folau could not make it due to illness.

Over a light brunch, the visitors were shown a promo video about the centre produced by former AUT communications students John Pulu and Sophie Johnson, followed by a Powerpoint presentation by Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Josephine Latu outlining the work of the organization. This covered a range of PMC projects in journalism training, research and news production.

Highlights included the twice-annual Pacific Journalism Review academic journal published by the centre, the new Graduate Diploma in Pacific Journalism programme to begin at AUT next year, the on-going Pacific Media Watch project, and the increasingly popular student-driven news website Pacific Scoop, a joint venture with independent media organization Scoop.

Reliance on international collaboration and networking with universities and associates in the region was also highlighted. Discussions about media developments followed.

Present at the meeting were PMC Asia Pacific Editor and Pacific Scoop co-editor Selwyn Manning, PMW contributing editor Josephine Latu, PMW reporter Gladys Hartson-Shingles, post-graduate student Tupouseini Taumoepeau, and former Fiji Post publisher and MA student Thakur Ranjit Singh. AUT Pasifika student advisor Isabella Rasch also attended briefly with a student.

In the photo (fromt left): MA student and Fiji political commentator Thakur Ranjit Singh, Cook Islands News political journalist Nerys Case, Samoa Observer editor Mata'afa Keni Lesa, PMW reporter Gladys Hartson, PMW contributing editor Josephine Latu, AUT post-graduate student Tupouseini Taumoepeau, Pacific Scoop editor Selwyn Manning and MFAT senior policy officer, Pacific Division Helen Tunnah.

PMW assists Tongan journalist in local mentor programme on human rights

Pacific Media Watch

Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Josephine Latu has been signed on to become one of 18 mentors in a pilot programme launched this week by Tonga’s Women and Children Crisis Centre.

The inaugural I-YEL program will run over a period of 12 months and will aim to encourage, prepare and challenge young people to be advocates for human rights with a special focus on women and children’s rights, social justice, gender equality and the overall goal of promoting the elimination of violence against women and children.

As part of the I-YEL’s Ta’okete (big sister) Mentoring scheme, 18 young women from the ages of 18-35 will each be paired up with another “inspiring female leader”, who can provide one-on-one mentoring and coaching in the career path the girls wish to follow.

PMW’s Josephine Latu has been paired with deputy editor of the Taimi 'o Tonga, Telesia Adams.

‘Shocking’ domestic violence

Adams started work with the Taimi as a court reporter in 2006, where she was “shocked” at the number of domestic abuse cases against women and children in Tonga.

“I reported their stories making use of the power I have as a journalist to let their voices be heard… In the back of my head there's the question what more can I do?”she said.

She then signed up for the I-YEL programme to expand her background on human rights issues.

Adams said that Tongan media is “dominated” by women, and people are becoming used to seeing young women in the profession.

Director of the WCCC, ‘Ofa-Ki-Levuka Guttenbeil-Likiliki said “through leadership development, career exploration and vision-setting, we hope that the I-YEL 2010-2011 in-take will be equipped with the appropriate skills to make wiser decisions – decisions that will help them live a life free from violence and abuse and to promote gender equality throughout Tonga.”

Other mentors include veteran broadcaster Katalina Tohi, NZ award-winning poet and writer Karlo Mila Schaaf who will be mentoring her partner online, Koe Kakai editor and political activist Mele Amanaki, human rights activist Betty Blake, and Tonga National Youth Congress director Vanessa Lolohea.


Women and Children Crisis Centre, Tonga

PIMA chair resigns over Pacific media 'politics'

By Josephine Latu: Pacific Media Watch

Tagata Pasifika reporter Aaron Taouma (pictured) has stepped down from his post of interim chair of the New Zealand-based Pacific Islands Media Association.

The executive committee will meet later this week to discuss his successor.

Taouma announced his resignation in a letter later circulated on Pacific Islands Journalists Online, saying PIMA was “pushed towards certain political directions”. This went against the founding documents of the organisation.

He wrote that a recent PIMA news release about media freedom “may have been at odds with PIMA’s constitution and general Pacific media opinion”.

PIMA was not just a forum for journalists but everyone involved in Pacific Islands media, he added.

According to PIMA spokesperson Phil McGrath, Taouma’s statement followed PIMA’s stand in support of journalists at the Pacific Freedom Forum conference held in Samoa on May 6-8.

This was during the height of debate surrounding Television New Zealand’s controversial report by Pacific affairs correspondent Barbara Dreaver on gangs, guns and drug smuggling in Samoa.

“Barbara Dreaver, being a member of PIMA, approached the executive for support,” McGrath told Pacific Media Watch.

Supporting journalists
“Our position at the time was that we support the right of any journalist to investigate and report - without fear of attacks - either personally or professionally,” he said.

McGrath added that an executive is “all about compromise”.

Dreaver’s television exposé ran on April 6 and included footage of young Samoans smoking marijuana, wielding machetes, and discussing the drug trade in Samoa.

It also reported that guns were smuggled into Samoa from the US and drugs from New Zealand.
The Samoan government has since filed a broadcasting standards complaint against TVNZ . The government alleges the report damaged the country’s reputation as a tourist destination and that Dreaver’s crew staged interviews with “actors”.

TVNZ rejects this claim and is vigorously defending the Dreaver report.

In his resignation letter on May 10, Taouma said “recent reports have…brought to light the issues of ‘parachute reporting’ and sensationalised single-angled accounts of events in the Pacific Islands”.

However, PIMA deputy chair Chris Lakatani, who accepted Taouma’s resignation, said PIMA was not a political body and had “no advocacy issues in its constitution”.

“We haven’t come to our members and said, ‘well what do you think of [the Barbara Dreaver] issue’, because we don’t have any mandate to make statements on those issues,” he told Pacific Media Watch.

“We will not support her just because she is a member of PIMA, but just like any other regular journalist, we support her right to be protected.”

McGrath said PIMA’s statement concerned the rights and freedoms of journalists across the entire Pacific.

Several Samoan newspapers have published articles with personal attacks on Dreaver and the issue was debated at an evening talanoa session of the UNESCO-funded PFF workshop in Apia.

Pacific Freedom Forum
Pacific Media Watch
PIMA
'Gangsta paradise' vendetta against Dreaver
Dreaver story on Samoan gangs [video]

Guidelines key to accountability, says broadcaster

By Josephine Latu: Pacific Media Watch

NUKU’ALOFA: With many Pacific nations facing tough crises – Fiji’s fourth coup, Tonga’s constitutional upheaval and a divisive election in Vanuatu – a regional media conference has highlighted the challenge of covering major political events.

This was one of the topics explored by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA) conference in Tonga last week.

“The key role of guidelines in political and elections coverage” was the title of a key session at the conference, with presentations by Phil Molefe (pictured), head of international affairs of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), and Murray Green, director of ABC International.

“Guidelines are to the newsroom what grammar is to language,” said Molefe, who spoke in an interview outside of closed sessions at the conference.

He told Pacific Media Watch this was especially relevant in developing countries, where having a set of established guidelines could ensure that media organisations remain accountable to the public and not the government.

Using South Africa as an example, Molefe said media could make the transformation from state apparatus to public service by taking up new commitments, new goals, as well as editorial policies that ensure accountability.

Guidelines could also help to keep journalists’ personal beliefs separate from their work and enable them to maintain professional standards.

The CBA handbook Covering Elections in Small States: Guidelines for Broadcasters, by Mary Raine, was also distributed at the conference. The book contains sections on reporting campaigns, opinion polls and the right of reply.

Molefe said that enforcing guidelines was a team act among newsroom managers, editors, and subeditors.

However, working in the public interest should be upheld throughout the news organisation.

• The conference was held on February 9-13. Photo by Josephine Latu.
Conference website

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.

• An antidote to parachute journalism - full story
• PMW database
• Original PMW website

Pacific Media Watch - the A-G summons to the Fiji Times

To Whom It May Concern,
Re: A-G Summons: A quick question to clarify the relationship here between the Fiji government and the media: Is there not public information or public relations personnel working for the government? Shouldn't this rather be their job instead of the leaders?
Thanks for the article,
Clare