Media coverage of war atrocities opens debate on INFOCORE research

 
Media is going through a "tremendous transformation as a result of the ever-changing, global media landscape". Video: Euronews

By Elena Cavalione of Euronews

IN A world torn apart by conflicts old and new, the issue of the media’s role seems to have growing importance.

Media coverage of atrocities committed during wars is opening up debate on the power images have to influence public opinion and political decisions.

INFOCORE is an international research study funded by the 7th European Framework Programme of the European Commission. It brings together experts from the Social Sciences to investigate the media’s role in violent conflicts in three regions: the Middle East, the Balkans and Central Africa.

Romy Frohlich from Ludwig Maaximilians University in Munich explains that journalism is under a state of tremendous transformation as a result of the ever-changing, global media landscape.

“What we see so far”, she says, “is that this change in journalism does affect or had an effect on the power balance within the shaping of public discourse, for example the relation between journalism and political actors or journalism and propaganda and public relations.”

Bikini bombs lawsuit inspires support at NZ peace action conference

Roskill MP and opposition Labour spokesperson on disarmament Phil Goff speaking
at the World Without War conference in Auckland today. Image: Del Abcede

BEFORE Parisian car engineer turned-designer Louis Réard named the sexy two-piece swimsuit he created a “bikini” in 1946, it was the name of an obscure Pacific atoll in the Marshall Islands, lost among more than 1100 islets in the trust territory, now an independent republic.

And Bikini Atoll was the Ground Zero for 23 US nuclear tests in the Pacific – out of some 67 conducted over the next dozen years in the Marshall Islands. (Excellent background on this in Giff Johnson's Don't Ever Whisper).

Last year the little republic filed a controversial lawsuit in the International Court of Justice at The Hague against Washington and the eight other nuclear powers – Britain, China, France, India, Israel (although it denies possessing a nuclear arsenal), North Korea, Pakistan and Russia.

The Marshall Islands accuses the nuclear club members of “violating their duty” to negotiate in good faith for the elimination of these weapons.

Now, over this weekend in New Zealand, some 200 people have participated in a World Without War conference drawing up a list for proposed action for peace and the Marshall Islands action came in for some strong support from several speakers.

'World Without War' - and a conference to help make it happen?

MORE than 40 people with wide-ranging expertise will pool their knowledge and ideas and propose an action plan for peace at a two-day conference this weekend at Auckland University of Technology.

As Peace Foundation president Dr John Hinchcliff says in the above video interview with Pacific Media Watch's Alistar Kata: “The world is facing a grim future in many directions, in not just nuclear weapons.”

The idea is for people share their knowledge as the basis for understanding the global threats and developing realistic action that might make a difference.

According to the World Without War action website, participants include "senior academics from AUT, the University of Auckland and Waikato University, experts against violence and war from Sweden and New Zealand, critics concerned about high tech weaponry, leaders representing our youth, the United Nations, Māoridom, education and religions."

• The programme | The speakers

Ricardo Morris ... stripping away the hidden agendas and media myths

Publisher of Repúblika Media Limited Ricardo Morris (second from left) with
University of the South Pacific journalism award recipients. Image: USP

This is the keynote message from Repúblika publisher Ricardo Morris at the University of the South Pacific/Wansolwara journalism awards 2014.

JOURNALISM is an act of faith in the future. That’s what the American television correspondent Ann Curry wrote in a 2010 cover essay in Guideposts magazine. Journalism, she argued, should do more than inform. It should make you care.

Ann’s essay, titled "Telling Stories of Hope", marked her long-deserved promotion to co-host of NBC’s Today show. Ann describes the lure of journalism for her as “a call, an urgency” to report because she knew that doing so would “give voice to those who need to be heard".

Not only do the people affected deserve to be heard, the media-consuming public also deserved to hear about what was happening in other parts of the world because it gave us “a chance to care, and it is that empathy that offers the greatest hope".

In today’s world, with short attention spans, competing media outlets and platforms and a world of information – not all of it edifying – at ordinary people’s fingertips, journalism can still be a way to inject some hope into our world.

Sneak preview on Solomon Islands documentary in progress - help needed

By Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka

THIS is a sneak preview of a documentary about the Solomon Islands conflict that Larry Thomas from Fiji and I have been working on for years.

We started filming in early 2003, prior to the deployment of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). We went back and did more filming after the RAMSI intervention.

We are now in the editing stage and looking for funds to complete the film. If you have ideas on where and how to access funds to complete this important film, please let me know.

This film will contribute a lot to the history of the Solomon Islands conflicts and the aspirations of Solomon Islanders.

In filming, we travelled to Malaita, Western Solomons and around Guadalcanal.

Coups, conflicts and human rights - Pacific media challenges in the digital age

AT THE heart of a global crisis over news media credibility and trust has been Britain's so-called Hackgate scandal involving allegations of phone-hacking and corruption against the now defunct Rupert Murdoch tabloid newspaper News of the World.

Major inquiries on media ethics, professionalism and accountability have been examining the press in Australia, Britain and NZ over the past two years.

The Murdoch media empire has stretched into the South Pacific with the sale of one major title being forced by political pressure.

The role of news media in global South nations and the declining credibility of some sectors of the developed world's Fourth Estate also pose challenges for the future of democracy.

Truth, censorship, ethics and corporate integrity are increasingly critical issues in the digital age for a region faced with coups, conflicts and human rights violations, such as in West Papua.

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.

Media, democracy and self-censorship in the Pacific

Robert Hackett speaking at a recent seminar at Fairhaven College, WWU on Vimeo.
USP media and democracy video coming soon.

RAMPANT SELF-CENSORSHIP in action? It was astonishing to see a Media and Democracy symposium at the University of the South Pacific – which raised the tempo of “quality” journalism debate in post-coup Fiji by quantum leaps – being ignored over substantive issues while the regime’s chief media official was splashed across both daily front pages.

Keynote speaker Professor Robert Hackett, a world-renowned Canadian authority on peace journalism and “alternative” journalism models, was not even reported. Instead, the news was Permanent Secretary for Information Sharon Smith-Johns saying “rise to the challenge” and take advantage of the lifting of censorship. But while the local media duly splashed this message, few local journalists actually engaged with the challenging ideas canvased at the conference.

Speaking to some of the young journos on hand, Café Pacific certainly had the impression that they were not experienced enough or well-equipped to cope with fundamental questions challenging the news media. Countries as diverse as Britain, Australia and New Zealand are pre-occupied with rebuilding public trust in the media – and strategies for doing this - in the wake of  the Leveson Inquiry triggered by the “hackgate” scandal that closed Murdoch’s big-selling tabloid News of the World and has led to prosecutions of several journalists and media personalities. 

But the local Fiji journalists seemed immune from this and not familiar with global debates about the future of journalism. A critical conference opening speech by USP Deputy Vice-Chancellor Esther Williams savaged the Fiji media (front page in the journalism student newspaper Wansolwara), complaining about reports “riddled with editorial mistakes”, drew defensive retorts from local scribes.

Yet the interesting research and analysis about Fiji and Pacific media presented at the symposium was covered in a very superficial manner, if reported at all. Fiji Television produced an atrocious Close-Up programme about the symposium by Myron Williams - not in the same class of the Geoffrey Smith special report about the Pacific Media Summit run by PINA earlier this year. Even Radio Australia and Radio NZ International (usually reliable) failed their audience on coverage. Readers need to go to Pacific Scoop or Pacific Media Watch for independent and informed and reportage.

The most insightful preliminary article was actually an offshore blog column on Grubsheet by Fiji-born journalist Graham Davis who wasn't actually even there (and should have been invited). While this mainly dealt with behind-the-scenes tensions leading into the conference, it at least raised some of the core philosophical issues facing the future of  regional media. Such issues included what models of journalism might be best suited for Fiji and the Pacific – an unbridled “publish and be damned” Anglo-American approach, or something more subtle but equally robust such as a range of journalism models grouped under the label “deliberative journalism”. “Deliberative” models – as deconstructed by the Pacific Media Centre’s Professor David Robie, are essentially those more suited to citizen empowerment for a better democracy – include those such as public journalism, alternative journalism, critical development journalism, peace journalism and human rights journalism. None of these models are “soft” or core journalism values, but add a wider range of skills as well.

Bob Hackett, co-editor of a recent book called Expanding Peace Journalism – comparative and critical approaches, deserved serious attention by the local media. His speech will eventually be published in Pacific Journalism Review. He spoke about what kind of journalism a democratic society needs, if it wants democratic governance to be stable and sustainable. Depending on which rationale for democracy is key – “protection or development” – there are “different models of democracy, each with different expectations of how journalism should function, what their ethical pronciples and practices should be and what legal framework best supports it”. He considered three models, in particular:

1.    Market liberalism – the “free market” model in Fiji (as it used to be) shared with Australia and NZ: “Democracy is seen not as an end in itself, but as normally the best institutional arrangement to maintain political stability and a liberal political culture characterised by individual rights and choice.” The media serves as a watchdog on government power.
2.    “Public sphere” liberalism – “prioritises the role of the media in facilitating or even constituting a public sphere so that public opinion can be formed”. The independent watchdog role continues, but a higher value is placed on popular participation.
3.    “Radical democracy” and a political economy critique – “radical democrats seek not to just reinvigorate an existing system of representative democracy, or to ensure quality of legal and political rights for everybody. They also prize direct participation by people in making the decisions that affect their lives and approximate equality in wealth and power.” The watchdog media role is endorsed, but greater emphasis is placed on social change and popular mobilisation against social injustices.

During the conference, the excellent new USP documentary on media freedom in the Pacific, made in association with the International Federation of Journalists (and directed by Don Pollock), was also screened. And there were feisty debates about media freedom and journalism education.

Stop press: Current USP head Dr Marc Edge has again misrepresented David Robie in his Fiji media wars blog. What was actually said about Pacific journalism education and standards at the USP symposium is reported here. Edge has also been blasted by the FijiVillage news team over his self-censorship claims.

The local media partially redeemed itself a week later with the Fiji Sun republishing a symposium overview by the Pacific Media Centre team on Pacific Scoop and the Fiji Times running a short (900 word) extract from David Robie's 8400 word paper about "deliberative" journalism and media models. Perhaps they read this blog? But Café Pacific wonders why no local scribes present at the conference produced a reflective overview article.

• USP media release on the symposium  
• USP journalism head Marc Edge under fire from Fiji media
• An elusive dream of a ‘free press’ 
• More iTaukei newspapers needed, says linguist
• More stories on the USP symposium at Pacific Media Watch
• Why development or peace journalism? The real issue is independent Pacific journalism
• Gap between democracy 'ideal' and reality, Canadian media expert tells Fiji 
• Self-censorship claims and denials fuel media debate
• Four Fiji media outlets confirm no self-censorship  
• Controversy in the Fiji Sun

Fiji's Permanent Secretary for Information Sharon Smith-Johns (speaking) and USP Deputy Vice-Chancellor Dr Esther Williams at last week's media and democracy forum. Photo: USP

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

How 'peace journalism' surfaced in the Pacific

SUDDENLY “peace journalism” has emerged as the flavour of the month in Fiji – and has even had a debut in New Zealand as an idea. A panel of local Fiji journalists at last week's University of the South Pacific seminar admitted they knew little about the approach. And, to be frank, were a little distrustful , as many journalists often are when confronted with a new concept and their natural skepticism pushes aside rational argument.

One journalist admitted she had asked around her newsroom (Fiji’s largest) about what peace journalism was. The answer: “Journalism about peace” - a rather unhelpful contribution from a colleague. In spite of the visit of the celebrated author and media theorist about peace journalism Professor Jake Lynch, director of the University of Sydney’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies , to Suva late last month (and considerable publicity), there was little idea that the notion is about community “empowerment” and actually plain good contextual journalism. The sort of journalism that helps find solutions, rather than adds to a community’s problems.

Speaking on Radio Australia with Geraldine Coutts, Professor Lynch said:

Traditionally, the Citizens Constitutional Forum and numerous other advocacy groups would do what they call hard-hitting advocacy. And they would take a stance which was very directly critical of the government for example. Now that's one way of ventilating [civil rights and social] issues, and it would fit with expectations among journalists of the kind of role they might play given that Fiji's media probably inherited a lot of its assumptions from the British system.

But it's certainly not the only way to ventilate those issues. And what I've been encouraging them to do is to think how they can arrange for the kind of testimony and perspectives of people at the grassroots, people who are dealing with these issues in everyday life to be more widely known and more widely appreciated, and thereby contribute to a national conversation in Fiji about the issues on their own merits.

It doesn't necessarily have to be fed through the filter perhaps familiar to audiences in Australia, where so many issues are wrapped around a claim by the opposition and a counter claim by the government, that kind of thing.

Barely a week later, at the inaugural Media, Investigative Journalism and Technology conference organised at AUT University by the Pacific Media Centre, the first-ever “peace journalism” seminar was staged in New Zealand – convened by a doctoral candidate from Pakistan, Rukhsana Aslam (pictured) and Dr Heather Devere of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Otago University. Aslam, who has contributed a chapter on peace journalism education to a new book Peace Journalism, War and Conflict Resolution, was well supported by Shailendra Singh of USP, One Television’s Koroi Hawkins in the Solomon Islands, and Taimi Media Network chief executive Kalafi Moala among others.

A few days later, Moala was in Suva along with Pacific Media Centre director Dr David Robie and senior journalism lecturer Dr Levi Obijiofor from the University of Queensland. Both Obijiofor, who spoke about a case study in the Niger Delta involving indigenous peoples and multilateral oil companies, and Robie have papers on peace journalism appearing in the forthcoming Journal of Pacific Studies. Moala gave an impassioned address about post-election realities in Tonga and how “democracy” was not necessarily a panacea and Pacific journos should not blindly follow Western news values. Robie’s message included, after an analysis of many conflicts in the Pacific region and the role played by media:

Peace journalism or conflict-sensitive journalism education and training ought to provide a context for journalists to ensure that both sides are included in any reports. The reporting would also include people who condemn the violence and offer solutions. Blame would not be levelled at any ethnicity, nor would combatants be repeatedly identified by their ethnicity. But the reporting would constantly seek to explain the deeper underlying causes of the conflict. This approach to journalism surely could offer some hope for conflict resolution in the Pacific and a peaceful future.

• Pictured above: David Robie and USP graduate journalist Joe Yaya, now with the Pacific Conference of Churches.
  
• Peace , Journalism, War and Conflict Resolution
• Kalafi Moala on democracy and Western news values
• Rukhsana Aslam on the NZ peace journalism seminar