Pacific journalists defend free media in latest PJR

Pacific Media Centre

Sophie Foster, assistant editor of the Fiji Times, is among leading journalists who have lambasted curbs on media freedom in the latest edition of Pacific Journalism Review.

She condemned the “growth of self-censorship” within Fiji’s media industry while revealing the findings of a recent survey of mainstream journalists.

Foster took sudden leave at the Fiji Times after a newsroom upheaval last week that saw former editor-in-chief Netani Rika resign and Sunday Times editor Fred Wesley become appointed acting chief editor.

She wrote in the “Media freedom in Oceania” edition of PJR being published by AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre tomorrow that self-censorship was already a feature of the Fiji news media.

“With journalists now coming face to face with the fact that the whole truth or freedom of expression is not being fully exercised, some are now having to consider self-censoring stories they work on – because they know that, unless they do, their stories won’t meet the censors’ approval,” she wrote.

“The fact that journalists are beginning to consider this course of action – considering going against their professional ethics and beliefs – is a telling factor and a worrying one for the future of freedom of expression in Fiji.”

According to her survey, the “vast majority” of responding journalists said they needed censorship lifted to do their job better.

The survey also found that “100 percent” of respondents did not believe the work they did was a threat to security.

“Many of the journalists who do the work they do in Fiji, do so because they believe they are in the midst of delivering a public service and a public good – one that involves them being the watchdog for the average citizen, keeping an eye on the injustices, insufficiencies, inaction and highlighting these things for the purpose of making a better Fiji,” Foster wrote.

Most of the edition commentaries were presented at the UNESCO World Press Freedom Day conference hosted by the University of Queensland in Brisbane in May.

Authors include Papua New Guinea Chief Ombudsman Chronox Manek, Pacific Freedom Forum coordinator Lisa Williams-Lahari and co-chair Susuve Laumea; Samoa Observer publisher and editor-in-chief Savea Sano Malifa, Cook Islands News managing editor and secretary/treasurer of the Pasifika Media Association (PasiMA) John Woods; Transparency Vanuatu president Marie-Noelle Ferrieux Patterson; Vois Blong Yumi Project leader Francis Herman; and Pacific Media Centre director Associate Professor David Robie.

Research papers include several about the three-month-old Media Industry Development Decree, “collaborative journalism”, the non-government organisation and civil society community and “life under censorship” in Fiji (by Shailendra Singh of the University of the South Pacific), and one article focuses on two newspaper case studies in media freedom in Tonga.

In the editorial, Associate Professor Martin Hadlow of UOQ's School of Journalism and Communication noted that the UNESCO conference “provided a platform for journalism and media professionals from the Pacific region to gather in special pre and post-conference workshops to discuss concerns and fears about repressive regimes”.

Supported by a grant from the UNESCO Office of Pacific States, this edition of PJR – now in its 16th year of publication – was jointly edited by Martin Hadlow, Marsali Mackinnon and managing editor David Robie.

PJR website
Order copies of v16(2) here
Malcolm Evans website

PMC director talks media freedom on JACradio

Pacific Media Centre/JACradio

Pacific Media Centre director David Robie is among a host of people interviewed at the UNESCO World Press Freedom Day conference in Brisbane earlier this month.

He talked to Lisa Machin from the JACradio team.

Genevieve Kennedy also interviewed Cherelle Jackson, editor of the Samoan newspaper Environment Weekly, on media freedom in Samoa.

Radio coverage from the conference is now available to download as podcasts. Students from the University of Queensland's School of Journalism and Communication joined international media in reporting the two-day event.

Among the stories they produced were interviews with UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and world press freedom prize winner Monica Gonzalez.

Hear Australian investigative journalist Chris Masters discuss how freedoms are not used well and find out how audiences are dealing with the sheer volume of news available.

Tune in to JACradio to download and listen to the WPFD coverage.

PMC director calls for stronger voice against censorship

By Pacific Media Watch in Brisbane

A New Zealand media educator who headed Pacific journalism schools for a decade has called for a stronger voice against censorship from the region’s communication education sector.

“The student press and broadcasters in the Pacific universities need to be proactive in their coverage and philosophy as news media,” said associate professor David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre at AUT University.

“They need to protect the freedom of the press and freedom of expression in the traditions of an independent Fourth Estate while also helping Pacific nations forge a common vision.”

Speaking in one of the University of Queensland’s school of journalism and communication World Press Freedom Day lectures, Dr Robie gave a series of case studies involving censorship in the region’s journalism schools, including the George Speight failed coup in Fiji in May 2000.

The University of the South Pacific journalism school’s training website Pacific Journalism Online was closed by the university administration when martial law was declared in Fiji on May 29 and only allowed to resume again three months later providing no coup news was published.

University authorities also tried unsuccessfully to halt publication of the journalism programme newspaper Wansolwara, which published a special coup edition in June 2000.

The censorship attempts by the authorities led to international protests by media freedom bodies such as the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières and New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The university failed to gag student journalism on both counts through the students’ personal courage and determination and they were later vindicated by winning several international awards for their coverage,” Dr Robie said.

He also praised the role of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ) at the University of Technology, Sydney, for immediately establishing a “mirror” website for the USP journalism students and continuing to publish the “gagged” students’ stories, pictures and audio clips.

“Their archive continues to this day,” he said.

Dr Robie said he had surveyed a number of students who had experienced coverage of that coup and they had “developed enormously” as journalists over the past decade. The experience had equipped them well for their careers.

“A shared view of many of the students reflecting on what they had learned during the putsch is that student journalism was in many respects more independent than the mainstream commercial media driven by profit,” he said.

Asked whether journalism schools were doing enough in the present climate of Pacific censorship, Dr Robie said far more could be done to continually test the boundaries.

But he cited Wansolwara’s special “role of the media” issue last year and an edition of the Fijian Studies journal devoted to media and democracy, which were examples of strong contributions to debate.

He also cited examples of attempted censorship by authorities at the University of Papua New Guinea, but said the student journalists had remained resolute.

Pictures: Top: Dr David Robie and Dr Levi Obijiofor, of the University of Queensland, at UNESCO WPFD 2010. Middle: Vanuatu Independent deputy editor Evelyne Toa and Dr David Robie. Bottom: PNG Ombudsman Chronox Manek.

• Fiji student coup journalism archive
• Source: 6838 Pacific Media Watch
• More UNESCO conference stories on Pacific Scoop and Pacific Media Watch
  

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]

Target Fiji in Samoa - how to beat censorship, media repression

Pacific Media Centre

A media freedom strategic planning workshop due this week in Fiji and climaxing with a World Media Freedom Day event in Suva on Sunday, May 3, has ended up exile. It has been moved to Samoa next week - censorship by Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama's regime is to blame.

The Pacific Freedom Forum reports that journalists and observers from 12 Pacific nations and all forms of mainstream media are making their way to Apia, Samoa, for a "Courage under Fire" media freedom event.

The workshop takes its ‘Project XIX’ theme from Article 19 (XIX) of the UN Declaration on Human Rights. Article 19 confirms the right to express an opinion or idea without fear for one’s safety, and forms the basis for what is commonly known as media freedom or free speech.

Lead trainer Deborah Muir is the Sydney-based programme manager for the International Federation of Journalists, and will bring a strong background in media training, advocacy, and development to the event.

Co-trainer Kalafi Moala is an award-winning media veteran, newspaper publisher and author recognised for his achievements by the Pacific Islands Media Association (PIMA), University of the South Pacific and Amnesty International.

He is currently chief executive of Taimi Media Network in Tonga. Project XIX national counterpart Vicky Lepou, lecturing in journalism at the National University of Samoa, also forms part of the training team.

“The Courage under Fire workshop comes at a critical time for free speech for Pacific journalists, and the insights and information which Deborah, Kalafi and Vicky will bring to the table make an ideal mix for meeting the needs of our training group,” says Project XIX facilitator Lisa Williams-Lahari.

“As journalists, it’s good to turn the lens inwards and examine ourselves as much as we put the spotlight on others. These events always provide that opportunity. But our trainers are also geared to help us take journalism to the next level, in terms of speaking out in creative ways - not just to protect the rights of people to be informed, but the right of the next generation of journalists to report what Pacific people think on issues, without fear or favour,” Says Lahari.

“In this respect, we are especially honoured to have NUS journalism students as part of our regional workshop group and we look forward to the energy and experiences of our future media managers as we also debate and chew through the current real-life situation of newsroom issues around article XIX.”

While Muir and Moala will be focusing on sessions around freedom of expression and the right to information, the PFF facilitator is keen to develop strategies from the discussions which will strengthen the relatively new PFF.

Lahari, from her own background as a Pacific journalist, advocate and trainer, says for this event, she has “picked up a unique air of excitement around the current activity which is good to see".

"It bodes well for ownership and involvement by Pacific journalists in their own industry ‘family’. Most of us are part of an online network. We are looking forward to meeting each other and our chair Susuve Laumaea for the first time, at this meeting."

The workshop was made possible by a grant from UNESCO, with support from the SPC Regional Media Centre and the global freedom of expression body IFEX, under its Outreach programme.

Journalists and observers from Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Hawaii, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu will be representing their organisations for the May 6-8 event.

The New Zealand contingent includes AUT's Pacific Media Centre director David Robie with support from the New Zealand National Commission of UNESCO.

Cartoon of Voreqe Bainimarama by Malcolm Evans for Pacific Journalism Review and digitally modified by Josephine Latu.

• Other regional events for World Media Freedom Day
• IFJ accuses governments of hypocrisy over press freedom
• Support the free Fiji media online petition

'Courage under fire' workshop moves to Samoa

Pacific Media Watch

A regional media event aimed at boosting Pacific journalism's capacity to face challenges to media freedom has been switched to Apia, Samoa, next week. Journalists from around the region will gather for the conference.

The Pacific Freedom Forum, UNESCO and Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) "Building Courage under Fire" three-day workshop was originally planned to take place in Suva, Fiji, this week, but was relocated due to the current emergency restrictions in place there.

On April 10, the Fiji President, Ratu Josefa Iloiloi, abrogated the Fiji constitution, sacked the judiciary and postponed elections until 2014. Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama was reappointed and rule-by-decree included a censorship crackdown on news media.

“While we felt that Fiji at this point in time would have been the ideal workshop venue, given our theme, we have a responsibility to ensure the funding support we received is used effectively> This would have been impossible given the emergency regulations in place there,” says PFF chair Susuve Laumaea.

Part of the cancelled event in Fiji was a regional UNESCO World Press Freedom Day celebration on May 3. The current emergency "laws" there make such an event illegal.

“The Fiji media situation shows clearly how media freedom affects all Pacific Islanders - not just those who work in the media. We want to look at ways to encourage that understanding, not just in our newsrooms, but across our communities and in the homes and minds of more Pacific people.”

Laumaea is joining delegates from Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and the host country at the media freedom workshop.

“Overall, the intent is not to single out any one country, but to ensure the Pacific context of the universal right to free speech and expression of opinions gets some timely attention and forward-thinking debate from journalists to enhance their everyday work,” he says.

The Pacific Media Centre and NZ Commission for UNESCO will be represented at the workshop.

'Sulu censors' stifle Fiji news media

No nonsense journalism guide migrates online

The News Manual Online
by David Ingram and Peter Henshall, with illustrations by Bob Browne

Reviewed by Julie Middleton: Pacific Journalism Review

An important journalism primer that has trained many Pacific journalists has finally migrated online, ensuring it a wider audience and a longer life. The trio of books dubbed The News Manual, which grew out of a search in the mid-1980s for resources for University of Papua New Guinea students, were published in 1991 with backing from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
A thorough and clear guide to basic reporting skills, including ethics, the law, and English grammar, their 700 pages formed an important resource in a region where only a lucky few got tertiary training, let alone specialised journalism coaching, and were (and still are) often plucked from a short secondary school career and thrown in the deep end.
The updated online version bills itself as a "straightforward, no-nonsense guide" to journalists in developing countries - it has a Commonwealth bias, reflecting the authors' teaching experience - but it is just as relevant to journalism newbies in more developed societies.
So much of learning the craft of journalism is about marrying technical skills with common sense, nimble thinking and people skills, and the resource reflects this in a way a lot of developed-country textbooks don't (but should).
The beauty of The News Manual Online is that in its friendly, straightforward tone and content it makes no assumptions about what readers know. Journalism texts do need to discuss the telephone manner that gets results, how to break the ice with strangers in a natural way, and how to accurately calculate the numbers of people in a crowd, all areas covered by The News Manual Online.
The chapters give simple, clear examples in explaining concepts such as news
sense. This is how it describes the need to make every intro word earn its
keep:

>> Your intro is like a canoe being paddled against a fast flowing current. Every word in the sentence should be like a man with a paddle, helping to push the sentence forward. There is no room for lazy words sitting back without paddles in their hands. They just make work harder for the rest of the words. So look closely at every word and ask yourself: "Does it have a paddle in its hand?" If it doesn't, throw it overboard!
>> Some of the fattest and laziest words to be found in the intro canoes are titles. Inexperienced journalists often think that they have to put full titles in the intro when, in fact, they belong later in the story.
>> Try to shorten titles for your intros wherever possible.

Exercises offer practice in intro writing and news story structure. The News Manual Online also discusses important issues for all reporters such as the dangers of stereotyping, the need to protect victims, and gender-neutral language. It looks at tricky issues such as the impact of tradition, culture and outside pressure, personal beliefs and reporting, and asks questions media everywhere still struggle with, such as whether the families of public figures should be fair game for media.
There are useful links and resources and a public feedback page. Most importantly, the website is easy to navigate and uncluttered, so those with sluggish internet can make the most of it.

>> Julie Middleton is an Auckland journalist. She is a former advocacy and communication officer for the Human Development Programme, Secretariat of the Pacific Community. Cartoon by Bob Browne.

>> Contact David Ingram