Timor-Leste’s Max Stahl – documenting the audiovisual and development ‘war’

Filmmaker and digital historian Max Stahl with an image from his 1991 Santa Cruz
massacre footage in Timor-Leste. Photo: David Robie

By David Robie

A YEAR after Indonesian troops killed more than 270 peaceful demonstrators at the cemetery of Santa Cruz in the Timor-Leste capital of Dili in 1991, news footage secretly shot by a cameraman surfaced in a powerful new film.

The Yorkshire Television documentary, In Cold Blood: The Massacre of East Timor, screened in six countries and later broadcast in other nations, helped change the course of history.

Until then, countries such as Australia and New Zealand – in spite of a New Zealander being killed in the massacre – had been content to close a blind eye to the illegal Indonesian invasion in 1975 and the atrocities committed for a quarter century.

The cameraman, Max Stahl, who risked his own life to film the massacre and bury the footage cassette in a freshly dug grave before he was arrested, knew this evidence of the massacre would be devastating.

In a documentary made a decade later by Yorkshire Television’s Peter Gordon, Bloodshot: The Dreams and Nightmares of East Timor, that interviewed key players –including Stahl himself - in the transition to restored independence in 2002, Timorese leaders reveal just how critical this footage was in telling their story of repression to the world.

East Timor's Independente champions genuine 'free press'

Independente's editorial director Mouzinho Lopes de Araujo ... living up
to the "people's freedom" motto. Photo: David Robie/PMC

By DAVID ROBIE  in Dili

WHILE the Timor-Leste media industry was rejuvenated by a national congress last month that voted on a new code of ethics, one of the country's most independent chief editors has warned against the risks of a "media council elephant".

Mouzinho Lopes de Araujo, editorial director of Timor-Leste's newest paper, the Independente, is proud of the progress of the country's fledgling media but says there are still many problems to address.

"There are many impediments to a free press in Timor-Leste," he says. "We don't really have a free press in this country. The press is all about what the government is doing and celebrations."

A draft media law is currently before the national Parliament and it is widely feared that a journalist licensing system and criminal penalties could be imposed as in Fiji and mooted in Papua New Guinea.

"The government is only interested in getting its own agenda across in the media, not what the people want," Lopes says.

The lies of Marc Edge, 'counterpropagandist'

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN once said that “half a truth is often a great lie”, but in the past few weeks the blog Fiji Media Wars has been treating readers to a steady smear campaign. Café Pacific publishes here a statement by journalist and media educator David Robie:

Canadian Marc Edge projects himself as a dispassionate scholar. In fact, he is a polemicist and “counterpropagandist” – as he admits proudly on his website – who has regularly used his position at a Pacific university over the past year and since to peddle self-serving disinformation. For those who wondered why I was departing from the usual editorial line of Café Pacific to make a rare personal public condemnation with my “Vendetta journalism” article last Wednesday, the answer is quite simple: To make the truth known.

"Counterpropagandist" - from Marc Edge's website, 3 February 2013.

Dr Marc Edge ... controversial
academic and blogger.
Photo: Wansolwara

When I heard Dr Marc Edge’s distortions on his Radio Australia interview late last month blaming Fiji’s military backed regime as the sole cause of his demise at the University of the South Pacific, I decided I could no longer remain silent. In my capacity as a regional journalism educator and journalist, I had the misfortune to cross paths with Marc Edge several times and over varied projects over several months at his university last year. I quickly learned he had his own personal agenda and little of it was to do with the truth or journalism education. In fact, I am now convinced that he never had the welfare of students or the USP journalism programme at heart. He merely wanted to use USP as a pawn in gathering fodder for his proposed “Fiji Media Wars” blog book to trash Fiji and portray himself as a media freedom “hero”. It backfired.

Inspirational Fiji widow's story credit to Wansolwara team

NICE to see Fiji sisters Sherita and Sheenal Sharma, who have been the maestros of the Wansolwara journalism newspaper at the University of the South Pacific this year, being so innovative about their skills. They have made a showcase of their work on their Sharma Productions Facebook page. There has been a lot of interest in their inspirational video Bangladesh's Supermum about the life of a young Indo-Fijian widow. That's "Bangladesh" as in the squatter settlement Nanuku in the capital Suva, not the country. This is what they say about the programme:

A 10-minute video of a widowed mum teaching at a school for the blind, and surviving in a squatter settlement in Fiji's capital, Suva. The settlement known as Nanuku ... is one of many that have sprung up in the greater Suva area. The story of a woman who struggles to live in a two-bedroom house, with her parents, not accepted by her in-laws as well as earning very little and having to work multiple jobs, Anshoo is an inspiration to the many women who live in poverty-stricken parts of Fiji.

 This is development journalism - and good storytelling - at work. Congratulations Sherita and Sheenal! In fact, double congratulations for Sherita because she has just won the Gold Medal for the top USP journalism student for 2012.

Café Pacific also takes the opportunity to applaud the journalism students for reviving Wansolwara Online. Not yet quite the finished product, but it is just good to be back in cyberspace after being offline since March 2007. The website follows an award-winning pedigree. Back in the 2000, the Wansolwara website (then known as Pacific Journalism Online, incorporating Wansolwara), won the international JEAA awards for Best Online and Best Publication (any media) for its coverage of the George Speight coup. In other words, the best produced by any journalism school in Australia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region.

• Sharma Productions on YouTube
• Fiji youth and constitution-making
• Cyberspace news on campus: The South Pacific experience
• Wansolwara Online - revived five years on

Why development or peace journalism? The real issue is independent Pacific journalism

IT IS astounding how misinformed and shallow the thinking of many journalists around the Pacific has been when faced with a quickfire debate on such terms as “development journalism” and “peace journalism”. Simply because one Canadian media educator trumpeted a discredited interpretation of “development journalism” - which Westerners like to project - based around the notion of a compliant form of media partnership with governments as promoted by past political leaders of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. But Café Pacific argues there are other interpretations - and the one David Robie has always supported is a form of investigative journalism that empowers citizens to make real change in their lives.

One of the best known exponents of this form of journalism is Kunda Dixit, editor-in-chief of the Nepali Times and a longtime senior editor of the Inter Press Service. His ideas were expressed in his book Dateline Earth: Journalism as if the planet mattered (republished in 2010 and in a sequel, A People War, which was reviewed in Pacific Journalism Review). There are many other advocates and it was a hallmark of the independent brand of journalism of the long missed Gemini News Service - once widely used by Pacific media  and now currently the target of a revival project.

Another prime example of this form of development journalism was through campaigning and courageous newspapers such as the original Malaya ("Freedom") while struggling against the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. Such cutting edge journalism has now been carried on in contemporary times by the nonprofit Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), which has led investigations against corruption, including a famous expose of how a then presidential Anti-Crime Commission tortured two 12-year-old boys suspected of a role in a kidnapping.

Some of David Robie’s concepts of “development”, “revolutionary” and “transitional” journalism - as taught for many years in the Pacific - are explained in book chapters such as his South Pacific notions of the Fourth Estate: A collision of media models, culture and values and Media and development in the Pacific: reporting the why, how and what now published in 2008. Both of these chapters explored his "Four Worlds news values" model. However, rather than using the term "development", which is generally so misunderstood and maligned in Western media discourse, "deliberative journalism" is better and far more appropriate as a concept - based on rationality, accountability, inclusion and fairness in a a strategy for media citizen empowerment. An excellent book on the topic is Angela Romano's International Journalism and Democracy: Civic Engagement Models from Around the World (2010).

About “peace journalism”: this approach has gained traction in the South Pacific in the last couple of years as represented in two conferences at the University of the South Pacific in 2010, and also through research-led initiatives by former journalist advocates, such as Associate Professor Jake Lynch at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University, and political studies lecturer Dr Heather Devere of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS) at Otago University in New Zealand. These initiatives have been parallel to a growing awareness of conflict resolution developments in the wake of the Bougainville civil war, ethnic warfare in the Solomon Islands and four coups in Fiji.

Mainstream media is too heavily biased in favour of  “official” sources embedded in power elites and not enough attention is given to the parallel “alternative” people's sources, leaving a fragmented understanding of issues. Spectacular failures of the "Western" media model have included the reporting of both the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan – the destruction of nations to "save" them in the so-called “war on terror”. Other failures closer to home have been the reporting of the Bougainville conflict and the current one-sided reporting of post-coup Fiji.

In contrast to a negative view of development journalism and/or peace journalism, both notions are variations of “good” journalism - contextual, balanced and truthful. Peace journalism in a nutshell (as defined by Dov Shinar in Peace Journalism: The State of the Art, 2007):

1.    Presenting causes of conflict and options on all sides – realistically and transparent.
2.    Giving voice to all rival parties.
3.    Offering creative ideas for conflict resolution, development, peacemaking and peacekeeping.
4.    Exposing lies and cover-up attempts.
5.    Paying attention to post-conflict development.

David Robie’s own ideas about peace journalism in a Pacific context are outlined in his 2011 article Conflict reporting in the South Pacific: Why peace journalism has a chance and he talked about this in a Radio Australia interview. Also, listen to his Radio New Zealand Checkpoint interview.

Essentially David advocates a homegrown brand of vigorous, ethical and independent "Pacific" journalism - as demonstrated in his books The Pacific Journalist and Mekim Nius.

• Issues such as journalism styles and methodologies will be discussed at the upcoming Media and Democracy conference hosted by the University of the South Pacific on 5-6 September 2012. Selected double blind peer-reviewed articles will be published in a special edition of Pacific Journalism Review.

• David Robie profile

War reporting, scams, global warming probes among top investigative journalism case studies

Photographer Amrit Gurung presents a copy of the book A People War featuring many of the “peace” photographs in Kunda Dixit’s photojournalism exhibition of the decade-long civil war in Nepal to Hemanta who was portrayed in the same spot on the cover.

Pacific Media Centre

KEY Asia-Pacific, Australian and New Zealand investigative journalists and researchers will gather at AUT University next month for a media “conversation” that will feature diverse issues such as war reporting, scams and global warming probes.

They will also consider the future of independent journalism and map out a strategy for more robust inquiry.

The two-day conference at AUT University on 4/5 December 2010, organised by the Pacific Media Centre, will host an investigative “masterclass” for young journalists, New Zealand’s first seminar on peace journalism, and screen groundbreaking documentaries or multimedia presentations on mining and Kanak independence in New Caledonia, Māori land rights in the Far North, and climate change.

Five leading Pacific Islands investigative journalists are also participating in the conference.

“This is a niche conference and one that features a range of innovative speakers and challenging investigation case studies,” says conference chair Associate Professor David Robie, director of the PMC.

“But there is also a very practical and achievable goal. We hope a group may emerge from this conference to provide more space and support for investigative and probing journalism in New Zealand and the Pacific.”

Television New Zealand Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver is the latest keynote speaker to join the Media, Investigative Journalism and Technology conference. She has broken many stories around the region and investigated many key issues.

She joins Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times and an Asia-Pacific investigative journalist; New Zealand investigative journalist Nicky Hager; and Professor Wendy Bacon, director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism and who runs a global environmental investigative journalism programme.

Other Pacific participants include Koroi Hawkins, chief of staff of Television One Solomon Islands; Patrick Matbob of Divine Word University in Madang, Papua New Guinea; Kalafi Moala, publisher of the Taimi Media Network (Tonga); and Shailendra Singh, of the University of the South Pacific.

The PMC is also hosting a masterclass in investigative journalism for student journalists and younger journalists facilitated by a team of international investigative journalists, including Dixit, Bacon and Dr Kayt Davies; and a specialist peace journalism seminar, organised by Dr Heather Devere of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and Rukhsana Aslam, a peace journalism educator from Pakistan.

Freelance war correspondent Jon Stephenson and strategic analyst Dr Paul Buchanan will give insightful papers on New Zealand and the so-called war on terror and embedded journalism.

Exhibitions of photojournalism by a collective facilitated by Kunda Dixit covering the decade-long Maoist civil war in Nepal - "Frames of War" - and Ngapuhi social issues photographer John Miller (featuring the little-known Ngatihine land rights struggle) plus workshops about challenging documentaries by Jim Marbrook and Selwyn Manning are part of the programme.

A seminar about the making of the award-winning film about global warming There Once was an Island: Te Henua e Noho is also featured.

A new Pasifika media portal will be launched at the conference – it will go “live” then and replace the current PMC website: www.pmc.aut.ac.nz

Don't miss this rare opportunity. Registration for the conference is now open.

More information on the conference website (and registration details): www.ciri.org.nz/conference2/index.html
The Pacific Media Watch database is at: www.pacmediawatch.aut.ac.nz

• Registration for two days: $150
• Masterclass registration only: $50
• Contact: Conference organiser Andrea Steward 0273382700

Telling Pacific stories with a difference

INTERESTING development at Scoop, the largest and most influential independent website in New Zealand ... Scoop Media is tomorrow launching Pacific.Scoop - a new department of the website devoted to telling the "untold" stories of the Pacific with flair and insight. This is a partnership with AUT University's communication studies school, which already produces an award-winning newspaper, radio station and regular television stories. Undoubtedly, the web content will be rather different from what mainstream news sites in New Zealand offer on the Pacific. The new Pacific offering was pushed by Scoop co-editor Selwyn Manning and carried on by co-editor and manager Alastair Thompson. Scoop already has a cutting edge with several specialised sections, notably Gordon Campbell's political and current affairs blog and Jeremy Rose's Scoop Review of Books. Pacific.Scoop is being edited by Café Pacific’s David Robie and his team at AUT University's Pacific Media Centre. There will be a strong educational core with student journalists filing from AUT, USP, Papua New Guinea and Samoa and elsewhere. And some development journalism tackling resources issues in the region. The team promises "independent news and comment" on a shoestring. Next March, the university is introducing a new Graduate Diploma in Pacific Journalism. Watch this space ...

New book explores crucial role for Pacific media in development

A new book on Pacific media is being launched in Suva, Fiji, on Monday to add to the growing literature on Pacific journalism. With a core of University of the South Pacific contributors and journalists and media analysts around the region, Media and Development will be exploring critical issues facing the Pacific - and what journalists can do about it. No doubt this publication will become a core text at the USP and other journalism schools, at least for postgraduate students. Published by the Fijian Institute of Applied Studies and co-edited by USP journalism head Shailendra Singh and economics professor Biman Prasad, the team of 23 contributors - including me - ought to be congratulated on the effort. After the book launching by Fiji Media Council chairman Daryl Tarte at USP, the co-publisher - Pacific Media Centre - will have another launch in Auckland further down the track.
With growing evidence of low economic growth, poverty, mismanagement, corruption and political instability in the Pacific, the co-editors argue that an unfettered flow of information is vital:
The media has a crucial role to play in facilitating quick and better access to information about issues such as health, education, technology, economy and politics to help to maintain the social and political cohensiveness that is so important for development in small and vulnerable countries.

• Fiji orders
• Australia and NZ orders - Pacific Media Centre publications
• 'Defend Fiji media from state regulation'

Bland and descriptive - and free speech?

A Singapore clarification from Alan Knight, the Oz board member of AMIC:
"I recall saying from the podium in Singapore, I thought the WJEC declaration was bland and descriptive. I also wondered why there was no reference to freedom of speech or the Declaration of Human Rights.
"Just for the record, the journalism education declaration was formulated by the WJEC which is a completely separate organisation from AMIC which in this case merely hosted the conference."
Just to add my few words, I tend to dismiss the recent negatives about "development journalism" - it is often misunderstood by western journos, particularly from Oz and NZ (most NZ j-schools cover little about news values outside the Kiwi environment). Vigorous development journalism as often practised in the Philippines and the Pacific, for example, uncovers corruption, is committed to media freedom and demands accountability - and usually requires a level of personal courage from journalists rarely needed in western media environments.
Alan noted the closing day speech by Anwar Ibrahim - this was inspired, even brilliant. It was worth being at this conference to hear him! Certainly he was one of the highlights for me.