| NIUSbeatPACIFIC Pacific Media Newsletter |
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July-August 2011
Welcome to the monthly Pacific e-bulletin of happenings, events, information and resources for Pacific journalists and media practitioners. Follow the latest news on media and development trends, people on the move, agency and regional organisation news and more. Informed by journalists for journalists, this regional media newsletter helps readers keep up with the ‘Niusbeat’ in our Pacific community. For more information and any queries on the items below, contact the IFJ Pacific project coordinator lisa.lahari@gmail.com
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News and neutrality: The case for journalism that matters: Pacific journalists will get a chance to discuss the ethics guiding what is news and how it is told, when they attend a seminar on News in the public interest: Civics and journalism ethics seminar in Honiara in October. Also described as community or public service journalism, the civics and journalism ethics seminar will allow participants to take a close look at their roles and responsibilities in their communities, and share their values on journalism. Regional support for a Pacific code of ethics will be on the cards. From promoting democracy and tolerance, striving for quality, accuracy and balance, to seeking development solutions and investigating issues important to the public, the ideals of civics journalism are already well-practised in many Pacific newsrooms. Taking that further with training skills to help with national follow-up workshops in 2012 is the plan behind the seminar, which forms part of the IFJ Pacific Regional Media Roundtable in Honiara, Solomon Islands. Register your interest and find out more by contacting IFJ Pacific Project Coordinator Lisa Williams-Lahari.(Email at the top of this bulletin).
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Media freedom in June/July: Alerts included statements of support and solidarity for Vanuatu’s national ethics and media monitoring training in late June. The workshop was a partnership between the Media Assosiasen blo Vanuatu (MAV) and the IFJ’s Media for Democracy and Human Rights in the Pacific project. Pacific Freedom Forum (PFF) welcomed a new regional network of Pacific Public Service Broadcasters, with state-owned versus public-interest news agendas a hot topic in the region. In Vanuatu, cabinet minister Harry Iauko faced four changes linked to an assault on publisher Marc Neil Jones on March 5. Public prosecutors denied a conflict of interest after they dropped two charges against Iauko, who had pleaded not guilty. Iauko instead was given a minimal fine on two lesser charges for which he pleaded guilty. The News of the World phone-hacking fracas in the UK raised questions on codes of ethics and conduct in the Pacific, with PNG’s then-acting Prime Minister, Sam Abal, using the chance to throw some flak at News Ltd’s PNG-basedPost Courier for what he claims was biased coverage of his government.
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Calling Pacific cartoonists: As country reports continue to come in for the inaugural IFJ Pacific Media Freedom report, we are keen to have any favourite cartoons or images which sum up media freedom a la Pacific. Please send any contributions or ideas to the IFJ Pacific Project Coordinator at lisa.lahari@gmail.com. For the country reports, writers from across the Pacific are looking at legal and policy frameworks as well as turning the spotlight on threats to journalists. Assessments of the state of media freedom across the Pacific community and recommendations for the future will help to provide a baseline – at least in the countries covered – for future reporting. Importantly, the Pacific Media Freedom report will bring the Pacific story into the regional assessments done by the IFJ across the globe. See the IFJ’s recent media freedom reports on China and South Asia atwww.ifj.org.
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Journalists improve reporting on health issues: SPC’s regional media centre joined forces with the World Health Organisation to urge Pacific journalists to step up and improve coverage and analysis of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the Pacific. Journalists participating in a two-day health and media workshop in Tonga in August reported on a regional NCDs Pacific Health meeting running back to back with the media one. The meeting brought together journalists from Tonga, American Samoa, Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Fiji. For more info contact SPC’s Regional Media Centre team leader, Larry Thomas, at LarryT@spc.int
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AIBD confirms November for PNG regional meet: The AIBD Pacific Media Partnership meeting for the region’s broadcasters, dubbed ‘Strengthening the voice of the Pacific’ has been shifted to 17-19 November from its initial August tag. The Crowne Plaza hotel in the Papua New Guinea capital of Port Moresby is the venue for a round of two-day pre-plenary workshops, including thematic issues around HIV/AIDS, broadcasting in emergencies and disasters, and content creation on multi-media platforms. There’s been no confirmation on whether the AIBD Pacific Media Partnerships event for broadcasters will join forces with the planned PINA Pacific Media Summit, also tipped for November in Port Moresby. For more info on the AIBD PMP meet, contact ABU’s Technology director, Sharad Sadhu: Sharad.s@abu.org.my
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Pacific voices at AMIC: More than 400 delegates, including four from the Pacific, attended the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) 2011 media and communications conference in India in June. To ensure the Pacific voice increases at one of the leading communications forums for our part of the world, start planning now for the 2012 AMIC annual conference in Malaysia. The 21st AMIC annual conference will be co-hosted by Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Kuala Lumpur, in the first week of July 2012. See http://www.amic.org.sg/
Representing the Pacific at AMIC 2011 were Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. University of Queensland associate professor Martin Hadlow, who played a leading role in bringing the UNESCO World Freedom Day event to Brisbane in 2010, and represented the Pacific at this year’s event in New York, presented on development communication with a focus on the Pacific and the region’s “heritage media”. He noted radio was “still very much king” in the Pacific. He outlined the success of new players such as New Dawn FM in Bougainville, which last year won UQ’s global communication and social change award.
PNG’s Joys Eggins, daughter of former EM TV journalist John Eggins and now doing her master’s degree at the University of Goroka, spoke about the Komunity Tok Piksa community video project in the Highlands. She outlined its success in producing visual messages on HIV/AIDS with local communities –and “the dilemmas of collaboration, consent and ownership”.
Associate professor David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre, compared campus-based media models Wansolwara at the University of the South Pacific (which is now published in partnership with the Fiji Sun) and Pacific Scoop (a partnership between AUT University and New Zealand’s largest independent digital news media group Scoop Media). Robie, who in June received AUT’s Vice-Chancellor’s award for his for valued contribution to Asia-Pacific journalism research, assessed the contrast in reporting by Wansolwara and Scoop on education, environmental issues, human rights, resource development, social justice, culture and language with mainstream media.
In addition, Auckland-based Munawwar Naqvi, of Unitec, offered a critical perspective on development communication with grassroots groups in central India. Two models - selective interaction and new involvement - were developed from data collected from interviews with various types of development NGOs.
See: http://cafepacific.blogspot.com/2011/07/global-battle-for-images-and-ideas.html
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Open call for NED Fellows: Journalists keen to link their newsroom work to human rights and democracy issues may wish to consider applying to the 2012-13 Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in Washington DC. NED Fellows are activists, journalists, and scholars who want to take time out to research pet passions in a supportive environment. See; http://www.ned.org/sites/default/files/2011-Democracy-Fellowships-Flyer-in-English.pdf
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Solomons journalist wins ComSec internship: From One News at Vavaya Ridge in Honiara to Marlborough House in London, news editor Evan Wasuka has topped the list of Commonwealth applicants to gain a six-month communications internship with the Commonwealth Secretariat in London. Wasuka, a founding director of One News and long-time correspondent for Islands Business magazine, will be based with the Communications and Public Affairs Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat until the end of 2011. He was among more than 40 applicants from 10 Pacific Commonwealth member countries. Wasuka will gain insights into how the Commonwealth Public Affairs division is run, and lend a Pacific edge to publications and general publicity materials.
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Pacific films to the fore in Tahiti: The ninth Pacific International Documentary Film Festival of Tahiti (FIFO) takes place in Tahiti, French Polynesia (Papeete), from February 6 to 12, 2012. Open to all documentary films concerning Oceania, FIFO selects and screens the best productions of more than 200 Oceania documentaries. All films screened at the festival will be eligible for the “Audience Award”. Only films in the “Official Selection” will be eligible for the “Grand Prize du Jury” and the three “Prix speciaux du jury”. Documentaries completed after January 1, 2009 are eligible for entry. All awards come with a cash prize and there are no entry fees! Contact FIFO coordinator Miriama Geoffroy at organisation@filmfestivaloceanie.org or check the FIFO site at www.fifo-tahiti.com
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Media on the move: IFJ’s Media for Democracy and Human Rights in the Pacific project bids adieu this month to our project manager Claire O’Rourke, who joins Sydney-based non-profit Essential Media, where she will be providing support and training to journalists in non-profits and unions. Claire was the lead trainer for the IFJ inaugural regional roundtable in Apia, Samoa, in November 2010, and represented IFJ at the Pacific Human Rights Defenders workshop in August, led SPC’s RRRT project. Taking the leap from Nuku’alofa, Tonga, to Brussels, Belgium, Tonga’s Government Press Officer Josephine Latu makes the biggest move this month as the press attache to the African-Caribbean-Pacific Secretariat where the current attaché, Robert Iroga, of the Solomon Islands, is concluding his four-year term and heads back to the Pacific. Regional vacancies for key roles in the forthcoming PacMAS are honing down for the selection committee who have been busy interviewing applicants for the Vila-based posts. Also in Vila, long-time journalist Lora Lini makes the jump to regional work and takes on the lead communications role for the Melanesian Spearhead Group Secretariat. Applications for the UNESCO Pacific communications adviser based in Samoa close in August. Next door in Fiji, primo media freelancer Samisoni Pareti has resigned as Air Pacific media consultant, while Shane Hussein, who formerly led communications at the US Embassy in Suva, will take on the role of full-time media adviser to the airline. Still in Suva, UN Women’s communications officer Sheryl Ho has left to take up a similar post with UNDP Pacific. There's always new moves in Pacific media - let us know by dropping a line to lisa.lahari@gmail.com - our best Niusbeat wishes go out to all of our Pacific media colleagues who are taking their work in new directions.
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Verbatim: “The curtailment of media access and freedom of speech and, as already evident, the disregard for judicial independence are especially worrying. It is a matter of particular concern that these are occurring at a time when Fiji, like other Forum island countries, is being confronted with very serious and still evolving economic challenges as a result of the global financial crisis.” -Forum SG Tuiloma Neroni Slade on the Fiji situation … two years ago (March 2009)
See full text at: http://www.pacificbusinessonline.com/fiji/story/13571/forum-sec-gen-slade-expresses-deep-concern-and-disappointment-fiji-developments
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On the NIUSbeat: Got something you want to share with other Pacific newshounds and media workers? Want to guest-edit a NIUSbeat edition? Feel there's something missing or want to contribute under any of the above headings? Drop the NIUSbeatPACIFIC editor a line atlisa.lahari@gmail.com
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NIUSbeat is part of the IFJ Asia-Pacific project, Media for Democracy and Human Rights in the Pacific, supported by the European Union and UNESCO IPDC. The IFJ represents more than 600,000 journalists in 131 countries. Find the IFJ on Twitter: @ifjasiapacific or on Facebookhere
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