Click below to read his views on my latest blog : Mainstream media: Breaking away or breaking in?

http://cafepacific.blogspot.com/2008/09/tabs-goes-for-publishing-strike-three.html

Malo lava and best wishes for the latest Pasifika community paper.

It’s editor Taberannang Korauba says that Pacific Community News is going to ‘fill the need for providing a more positive face to Pacific communities.

Pacific Islanders living in NZ already know about their own success stories, their involvement in the community, the developments.,

Pacific Community News like the Pacific Island media outlets already established in NZ wants to serve the same purpose for which they were set up- to provide media coverage for Pasifika people.

It will also target only Pacific Islanders.
The question is – is this what we want to be doing?

Highlighting our own success stories in our own newspapers, radio stations, media outlets so that only we can take note of them?

In doing so, we’re not allowing our non Pacific Island neigbours, co workers a look into our lives.
We’re seperating what we think is our ‘news’ from the mainstream media ‘news’ the rest of NZ is tuning into.

The way to break these barriers is for the Pacific Island journalists to join the mainstream media newsrooms around the country.

We have the understanding of our cultures, we have our ears to the ground in our Pacific communities, the contacts.

We will represent the voices and untold stories of our PI communities in these newsrooms.
It doesn’t mean being in the newsroom and focusing only on PI stories.

Your there to do the usual beat any other journalist in the newsroom would do.

Covering the courts, covering Parliament, doing the police round, but, at the same time letting your newsteam know what’s going on down in the PI communities and assisting them to cover the stories.

In 2006, 265,974 people identified as Pacific Islander in New Zealand.
That’s 6.9% of the total population.

I think these 265, 974 plus people would like to turn on the 6 pm news, pick up the main daily paper or community paper and see their stories being told.

This was picked up by Pacific Cooperation Foundation’s David Vaeafe, one of the judges.
Mr Vaeafe says that the Pacific chiefly titles are equivalent to the English ‘Sir’

In Samoa matai are referred to by the use of their matai titles.
E.g: A story on  Pacific Island Affairs Minister Luamanuvao Winnie Laban would refer to her throughout as Luamanuvao, not Ms Laban.

To refer to Luamanuvao as Ms Laban by any media outlet in Samoa would be disrespectful.
That is in the islands however.

New Zealand media’s use of matai titles according to Mr Vaeafe is done on an organisation by organisation basis.

One of the views expressed during the awards ceremony was that implementing the use of matai titles would not be too hard.
“It wouldn’t hurt us to try”

This is a good sign for Pacific Islanders in New Zealand when members of mainstream media take this approach to something so important them.

I guess this is also a sign of NZ’s growing newsroom keeping up with the the people from all walks of life picking up the papers, and tuning into the news bulletins these days.

One of them was Robert Iroga.
Robert was working with the Solomon Star at the time as a reporter.

I was just into my second year as a cadet reporter with the Samoa Observer.
We’ve lost contact over the years and I just googled his name to find out if he was still in the Solomon’s and if the business card from 2004 I’ve still got are his correct contact details.

This is what I just found out.
Since 2004 Robert has worked his way up to the position of Solomon Star editor.

Today, however, he is working in Brussels.
He was appointed press attaché and head of the press office for the 79-nation African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Secretariat in Brussels this year in January.

Wow. I’m in awe of his great achievements since 2004.
I feel his success in the journalism field in Solomon Islands and the region is one of the many inspirations to young Pacific Island journalists.

Robert holds a bachelor of communication arts from Divine Word University PNG and an Advanced Certificate in Journalism from the Thomson Foundation, Wales.
He also studied in New Zealand at the Manakau Institute of Technology where he received a diploma in journalism.

The uncertain future of the next generation of Pacific Island journalists.
It got my attention as I think there’s an issue here that needs to be addressed: The need to push for more young Pacific Islanders to take up journalism.

I highlighted the fact that out of my 25 Whitireia Polytechnic journalism classmates only two others were Pacific Islanders.
Hinano Andrews and Charlina Tone.

I’m yet to take a look at the numbers of Pacific Islanders enrolled in the country’s other Journalism Schools.

In Samoa despite the turnout of between 15 and 20 students from the local Polytechnic with Diplomas in Journalism each year only a handful actually move on to work in the media outlets.

Local papers, radio stations, broadcasters are always scractching around for newcomers.
The situation in neighbouring American Samoa is similar.

Mrs Miller says that as more and more media outlets open up, the competition for journalists will improve working conditions and benefits for those who practice the trade.
So there’s a need to attract more to study journalism, then there’s the need to have the benefits in place to keep them pracitsing the trade.

Pushing them in the right direction at the moment however would be to encourage them to take up journalism studies.
Then to push them in the direction where there are funds available to make this happen.

Whitireia’s projects for 2008 included the recruitment of Maori and pacific Island Journalism students.
This included the Tertiary Education Commission providing Whitireia with skills enhancement funding for up to 10 Maori and Pacific Island journalism students.

Other scholarships are available under the New Zealand short term training awards:

http://www.nzaid.govt.nz/scholarships/training-awards.html//

Maybe there is also the need to create more funding for scholarships on a regional basis.

Media consultant Alfred Sasako, journalist and former parliamentarian in Solomon Islands says that when he is in Honiara he is hounded each time by young people wanting to take up journalism studies.
That’s a good sign, at least for Solomon Islands.

This weeks news release and statement released by the newly founded Pacific Freedom Forum is an example of collective media in the Pacific standing together as one voice to strongly condemn attacks on media freedom in Fiji.

STATEMENT ON THREATS TO MEDIA AND CIVIL FREEDOMS, DEMOCRACY IN FIJI

We, the newly-formed Pacific Freedom Forum, are on online network of Pacific media colleagues with the specific intent of raising awareness and advocacy of the right of Pacific communities to enjoy freedom of expression and be served by a free and independent media.

We believe in the critical and basic link between these freedoms, and the vision of democratic and participatory governance pledged by our leaders in their endorsement of the Pacific Plan and other commitments to good governance.

In support of the above, our key focus is monitoring threats to media freedom and bringing issues of concern to the attention of the wider regional and international community.

We call on civil society and governments in the region to stop the deafening silence and openly condemn the ongoing intimidation and harassment of media and civil society workers in Fiji.

The police detention of journalists on dubious grounds goes beyond breaching basic human rights.

The increasingly threatening abuse is clearly aimed at spreading fear amongst media workers, activists, and their families. There should be no reason why the current government should need to bypass its own laws, or media complaint procedures already in place via the Fiji Media Council.

The people of Fiji need to know that their Pacific brothers and sisters are aware of their uneasy situation. They need to know we are united and unanimous in condemning the type of leadership and policing aimed at silencing democratic processes of dissent, debate or criticism.

We call on individuals, organizations and governments attending the 39th Pacific Leaders’ Forum in Niue this week to put the spotlight on the situation in Fiji during their deliberations and reaffirm the promise made to all Pacific people, including the people of Fiji, within the vision of the Pacific Plan.  Our Forum Leaders and the broader regional and international community must ensure the current government be left in no doubt that intimidation and harassment of its people cannot go hand in hand with rhetoric claiming support of human rights and freedom of the media.

The Freedom Forum supports the call of the Pacific Islands News Association this week for a concerted and collaborative effort from regional leaders to demand that Fiji respects its promise to establish a democratic and legal regime in the country.

Our leaders have already identified breaking the silence on HIV and AIDS as a way of fighting the epidemic in the Pacific. We say it is time to break the silence over the threats to media and democracy in Fiji and put its regime on notice that their continued intimidation of their own citizenry is unacceptable.

]]> http://pcfjrno.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/pacific-freedom-forum-statement-released-today/feed/ 1 pcfjrno http://pcfjrno.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/pacific-freedom-forum-calls-for-action/ http://pcfjrno.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/pacific-freedom-forum-calls-for-action/#comments Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:06:59 +0000 pcfjrno http://pcfjrno.wordpress.com/?p=29 ]]> Pacific Freedom Forum has joined the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) in their condemnation actions by Fiji’s Interim Regime and the continuous attacks on media freedom in Fiji.

See first news release below:

Attacks on Fiji media a cause for regional concern

Media workers under the newly- formed Pacific Freedom Forum (PFF) are calling on civil societies and government leaders in the region to condemn continuing attacks on media freedom in Fiji in the strongest terms.

The PFF joins the Pacific Islands News Association in condemning these actions by Fiji’s Interim Regime.

A recent series of deportations and detentions are now viewed as “calculated strategy” of intimidation aimed at muzzling media coverage and any public criticism of the military regime.

Fiji-based media is again under threat as never before, with the detention of a pregnant Fiji Times reporter by eight Fiji police officers in the Northern town of Labasa a week ago being the most recent.

“We see this detention as the latest in a series of actions designed to intimidate journalists,” says Susuve Laumaea of the Pacific Freedom Forum, an e-forum set up this week by members of a private industry forum, Pacific Islands Journalism Online.

“We view with growing alarm signals coming out of Fiji, including one newspaper raising concern about a ‘consistent siege’ against media freedoms.

“Concern is growing that this and other detentions are not spontaneous, case-by-case reactions from an annoyed ‘interim’ government.

“They are more a calculated strategy using any excuse to breed fear amongst the media, the only institution maintaining freedoms of speech on a daily basis in the face of what is looking more and more like a military regime. Media freedom is also under threat in the Media Tribunal proposed by the regime with powers to fine journalists, editors and publishers,” reads the statement.

“This will act as a ‘court of review’ on adjudications of the Media Council Complaints Committee. Like so much else in the charter it risks being rigged. We don’t think the tribunal will do what the regime wants i.e. muzzle the media. So we fear the next step. Meanwhile the police force which has become little more than an arm of government is being used to threaten and harass journalists and others.”

In the days after the 2006 coup journalists, editors and publishers were threatened with violence by the military and in some cases assaulted. Since then, behind the headlines, behind the talking heads on television, across the region, threat of violence is never far from regional media thoughts.

The Pacific Media Forum was set up after months of online debate in Pacific Island Journos Online (PIJO), an off-the-record group, about the situation in Fiji. PIJO numbers 122 media workers, with 14 joining the Freedom Forum in less than 24 hours. Among them senior media workers from Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Cook Islands, American Samoa, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Australia.

Anyone interested will be able to find more in the 2009 School of Communications Studies Handbook and AUT calender for 2009/10.

Enrollments for the programme begin next month.

A note in the announcement many would have taken to was the fact that a Pacific programme leader is being recruited to teach the new course.

I’m looking forward to hearing the announcement of the Pacific programme leader.

No doubt this person will have an influence on the interested applicants and hopefully it’s someone all will feel comfortable with teaching the programme.

]]> http://pcfjrno.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/graduate-diploma-in-pacific-journalism-gets-green-light/feed/ 0 pcfjrno http://pcfjrno.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/fiji-police-vs-journo/ http://pcfjrno.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/fiji-police-vs-journo/#comments Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:55:29 +0000 pcfjrno http://pcfjrno.wordpress.com/?p=21 ]]> Monica Miller, former PINA president is calling on all PI media out there to circulate these stories to the press, broadcasters, magazines and national media organizations in the region and beyond.

“ This is crazy. Journalists can’t be expected to work in an environment of harrassment and intimidation like this. What’s next in this campaign of muzzlng the press? Will the police demand journalists to disclose their thoughts?”

Click on the link below to read the most recent police vs journo incident in Fiji:

http://www.pina.com.fj/?p=pina&m=program&c=mediafreedom&s=read&o=19118777248a1f7d171d7f893f610f&PHPSESSID=2cbdaa7351fabda6ce1390ce97cda308

I’ve had the pleasure of training under Peter Lomas when he was the Training and Development Editor of Samoa Observer and he said it right when he told me: “Never assume, it only makes an ass of u and me”

His break down of assume constantly haunts me to the point where I’m even asking people with names like David -is that D-a-v-i-d?

Yesterday I came across an interesting piece from Kalafi Moala, publisher of Taimi ‘o Tonga in reply to a story by Kathy Marks of the United Kingdom’s Independent.

Mr Moala claims that after interviewing him for half an hour Ms Marks has gone off and written an article full of inaccuracy.

He’s even suggesting defamation.

I’m just picking up on his comments on being misquoted from his letter though, I guess parachute journalism when I get to know more about it is another blog all together.

PARACHUTE JOURNALISM – ENOUGH IS ENOUGH*

*Kalafi Moala, publisher of Taimi ‘o Tonga, replies to an
*Independent*article on July 22 by Kathy Marks – “The last king of Tonga?”

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/the-last-king-of-tonga-8...

NUKU’ALOFA (*Pacific Media Watch*)

Earlier this month in the Pacific Island kingdom of Tonga,

a middle-aged looking woman by the name of Kathy Marks
arrived at my home in Kolomotu’a in a red taxi.

She had called a week earlier to say she was a journalist

from the United Kingdom with the *
Independent* newspaper; and she wanted to talk to me.
The 30-minute interview we had seemed like an hour.

As I have done many times before with visiting journalists,

I understood the interview’s purpose to be simply

familiarise her with what was going on in Tonga – background
information.
She wanted to know about the king, Siaosi Tupou V,

who is being crowned this week in Tonga.

Obviously he is the subject of great interest.
Ms Marks remarked that she had not been to Tonga before,

and that she was leaving “the day after tomorrow.”

She was not even going to be here during coronation week.
A couple of days after talking with Ms Marks,

a friend sent me the article she had written on Tonga.

It was titled “The last king of Tonga?”
The line she took in her article was definitely one of being anti-monarchy,
and especially the Tongan monarchy.

That did not bother me much, for foreign journalists have had

their fair share of negative obsession with the Tongan monarch.
What bothered me greatly were the gross inaccuracies in Ms Marks’ article,

which proved the Pacific-wide sentiment against whirlwind, parachutejournalists.

These are the journalists who fly into a place with their

knowledge limited to the biased writings of other fellow parachute
journalists, and they talk to a few locals to try and confirm that bias.

Ms Marks quoted me as saying that “when I visited,

he (the king) made a cupof tea for us.”
Firstly, I have no idea where Ms Marks got that quotation.

Not only is this false, but quite insulting particularly in our Tongan culture.

Imagine the king making tea for me, a commoner?
Secondly, I have never visited the king, and the king has never “made teafor us”
Ms Marks did not misquote me. She simply made that one up.
There are other inaccuracies in her story.

She said “the king is unpopular with his

subjects because of his refusal to live in the Palace.”
Are you kidding?

If the king is as unpopular as Ms Marks claims,

it has nothing to do with living (or not living) in the Palace.

I do not know of anyone in Tonga that thinks this way,

and as a journalist for 20 years in Tonga,

I have not once heard this ridiculous claim.
Ms Marks also claims that “revolution is in the air”

at this time of the coronation.

It is hard for me to think that Ms Marks is talking about Tonga.

She did talk to Pro-democracy leader ‘Akilisi Pohiva, whom Ms Marks claims
to have been “twice imprisoned by the Royal family.” I was imprisoned in
1996 with Pohiva once for 26 days.

The imprisonment was not by the Royal family. It was a decision by Tonga’s
Parliament that the judiciary later ordered to be reversed. The Royal family
can imprison no one in Tonga. We do have an independent judiciary, j

ust likethey have in the United Kingdom.
A libellous attack by Ms Marks on the current king alleges that the king
“uses state assets to fund his jet-set lifestyle.” She did not give any
details what state assets the king was using, but it is my view that legal
action should be taken against Ms Marks and *The Independent* for
defamation.

Lastly, the article claims that Tonga is a “highly traditional and Catholic
Society.” Tonga is a largely Free Wesleyan Society, has been for almost 200
years, even though the fastest growing church in Tonga now is the Mormon
Church. Where did Ms Marks get her information that Tonga was Catholic?
The average Tongan who reads an article such as was written by Ms Marks
would just simply shrug it off and go on unaffected. But, enough is enough
with ignorant and demeaning parachute journalists, who fly into the Pacific
uninformed and fly out misinformed.
The least Ms Marks and the *Independent* should do is to apologise for the
inaccuracies and correct them. On the eve of our king’s coronation, a UK
journalist has made the most defaming remarks about the king and his island
kingdom. Our king and nation has not only suffered unreasonably, but so has
truth.