Asia Pacific Report - a new venture for independent journalism

Alistar Kata's video about the Pacific Media Centre.

By David Robie

Comments from the AsiaPacificReport.nz and video launch in Auckland tonight.

OUR new adventure really began back in 2007 when Selwyn Manning joined the Pacific Media Centre as the founding advisory board chair, but really took a big leap forward when he initiated the Pacific Scoop concept and we developed that together, launching it at the 2009 Māori Expo.

Over the next six years, Pacific Scoop played an inspiring role in independent journalism alongside the main Scoop Media website, providing a range of Asia and Pacific stories and analyses.

A significant core of this project was its role as the official output from AUT’s postgraduate Asia Pacific Journalism course. We have sent students all over the Pacific on key story and research assignments over the years. Some of these stories have won awards.

While at AUT, Selwyn did two innovative postgraduate honours degrees – producing ground-breaking documentaries for both, Morality of Argument and Behind the Shroud, which are featured on AsiaPacificReport.

Stop the press - a stimulating contribution to NZ media debate

A story, “Locked Up Warriors”, about the New Zealand jail culture on Al Jazeera’s East 101 series. See Tom Carnegie's story below on New Zealand journalists working at Al Jazeera. Image: Al Jazeera – Watch video.

SCOOP  has been hosting a lively series entitled The State of NZ News Media that is providing some rare insights into an industry under siege (not that you would know much about this from local publications). The short-term objective is identifying possible ways of reinventing Scoop and ensuring its future as the vital independent news service that it is.

A longer-term goal is giving New Zealand journalism an energy boost and new directions.

The State of NZ News Media

As part of the debate, some interesting pieces are coming to light on the wider issues of freeing New Zealand from the shackles of an insular and short-sighted industry. Niche media such as Scoop are essential for the country.

We need independent and vigorous media with an international outlook prepared to challenge the neo-liberal orthodoxies and prejudices, such as Australia has with the Antipodean edition of The Guardian, The Conversation, New Matilda, Crikey and others.

Alison McCulloch's provocative piece is a particularly good read: Stop the Press - is corporate media a flawed product? It is, of course. But Alison's argument concludes with her own personal response and suggestions about what to do:

I appreciate absenting myself from daily corporate churnalism isn’t going to bring about a media revolution. But the structural problems run so deep, this profit-making media monster simply can’t be fixed with a little tweaking about the edges.

Live blog: Bainimarama takes commanding lead in Fiji elections

Livestreaming with Repúblika editor Ricardo Morris and Pacific Scoop’s Mads Anneberg.

PACIFIC SCOOP TEAM
By Ricardo Morris, Mads Anneberg, Alistar Kata and Biutoka Kacimaiwai in Suva
WHILE the results are provisional at this stage, it is quite clear today that the people of Fiji have given coup leader Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama a democratic mandate.

His Fiji First party was polling way ahead of the opposition Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) at 6am this morning when counting was suspended until later today.

With 1244 of the 2025 polling stations tallied by the Fijian Elections Centre, Fiji First with a multicultural policy of “Fiji for all” had 233,094 votes, or 60.2 percent of the total vote – more than double the indigenous party SODELPA, which represents the political group ousted in the 2006 military coup.

Fossil fuel industry 'needs to back down - not the Pacific' on climate change

Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Daniel Drageset interviews Marshall Islands Journal editor
Giff Johnson in Majuro.

By Michael Sergel of Pacific Scoop and the AUT journalism programe

CLIMATE CHANGE is top of the agenda in Majuro as the Pacific Islands Forum meets for the 44th time.

The Marshall Islands is calling for strong committed action on preventing and responding to climate change, as it welcomes delegates from 16 member states (minus suspended Fiji) to the renewable village that will play host to the next four days of talks.

Marshall Islands Forum Minister Phillip Muller said the Majuro Declaration was about “tangible action” rather than a “you-go-first” approach to climate policy.

“In the Pacific, we cannot afford to wait. We want the Forum to set the stage for a new, bolder approach,” he wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in June.

“We call on not just governments but also intergovernmental organisations, the private sector and civil society to sign on to our declaration with their own measurable commitments aimed at averting a climate catastrophe.”

Rebuilding the foundations of independent public interest journalism

Scoop editor and general manager Alastair Thompson (left)
and Pacific Media Centre’s director Professor David Robie
at the Scoop Foundation launch. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

An address by Scoop editor and general manager Alastair Thompson for the launch of the Scoop Foundation project and Pacific Scoop Internship at AUT's Pacific Media Centre.

By Alastair Thompson

In a push to offer new support and momentum for public interest journalism, New Zealand's leading independent news provider, Scoop Media, is lending its weight to two initiatives being announced for the first time.

The first initiative, the Scoop Foundation Project, brings Scoop.co.nz together with a group of New Zealand’s leading practitioners of public interest journalism to create a charitable trust to fund investigative journalistic work.

This coincides with the launch by Scoop of a $5000 Pacific Scoop internship being awarded in conjunction with AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre (PMC). The first recipient, Danish radio journalist Daniel Drageset, was named at the School of Communication Studies Awards event held at the newly opened Sir Paul Reeves Building at AUT last week.

The name for Scoop's "Scoop Foundation Project" plays on the associated ideas of "foundation" and "construction". It is clear that we now need to build a new journalism.

The one that we have has been struggling for some time, and a key component of it - print - is now on life support.

And to build a new journalism we need to start by (re)constructing some foundations. And that is what the Scoop Foundation project will do.

The first important thing to understand about the Scoop Foundation Project is that it is a completely separate entity from Scoop Media Limited, publisher of the Scoop.co.nz.

PACMAS media report dodges the aid elephant in the room

Members of an executive meeting of the Media Association of the
Solomon Islands (MASI) discuss issues. Photo: PACMAS

A RECENT PACMAS report is a constructive diagnosis for the ailing state of the region’s media associations, and a prescription for how things can get better. But it manages to dodge the elephant in the room – accountability.

For months, social media outlets and journalists have been asking about the fate of the Media Council of PNG, once one of the strongest in the region and an example to the rest. But it has been dogged in recent years because of allegations of fraud.

AusAID funding and the executive director, Nimo Kama, was suspended pending an inquiry. But the outcome of this has been kept very quiet. AusAID reportedly funded the PNG Media Council to the tune of $500,000 in 2010.

In a Radio Australia Correspondents' Report (the last time a sensible item was published or broadcast about the issue apart from this Pacific Scoop update), Liam Fox said in an interview with Emily Bourke:

[A] recent audit found some of the money "had not been managed in accordance with procurement guidelines" and there was "anecdotal evidence of fraud".

Global battle for images and ideas - challenging the West's 'news duopoly'

Professor Daya Thussu speaking at AMIC 2011. Middle: PNG's Joys Eggins. Bottom: PMC's Dr David Robie. Top two photos: David Robie; bottom image: Manawwar Naqvi

ONE of the highlights of last month’s AMIC conference in Hyderabad, India, was a presentation about the US/UK news “duopoly” and the distortions and “injustices of information flows”. Presented by professor Daya Thussu of Westminster University, a former editor of Gemini News Service - one of the post-war pioneers of “independent news” - it was a compelling session. Thussu regards the rise of Al Jazeera English as a critical factor in creating a “news contra flow” to challenge the Western prism. “It was important to have the independent perspective on the Libyan civil war provided by Al Jazeera,” he said. “There is a global battle for images and ideas and Al Jazeera is an important counter to the BBC/CNN global news duopoly."

Undoubtedly, foreign policy has been enormously affected by WikiLeaks – “the greatest leaks in history”, he argues. And the information guerrillas are playing an important role too, in spite of the celebrated “Gay girl in Damascus” blog being exposed as a hoax, and blogger Amina Arraf being unmasked as a man - 40-year-old American student activist Tom MacMaster.

The four-day 20th Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) conference, with more than 400 participants and presenters, was a stimulating event, even if understandably very heavily focused on the host nation India. The “Pacific” contingent may have been tiny (just four from Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea), but the team profiled well.

Associate professor Martin Hadlow of the University of Queensland and the Pacific’s representative at the UNESCO World Freedom Day event in New York in May, following his valiant efforts at getting last year’s UNESCO event staged in Brisbane last year, provided a global overview of development communication with a focus on the Pacific. He described how the Pacific, while being relatively underdeveloped in ICTs, had actually stolen a march over many developing countries with an innovative and rapid take up of mobile phones. He also talked about the region’s “heritage media” and radio was “still very much king” in the Pacific. He outlined the success of some new players like New Dawn FM in Bougainville, last year’s winners of a global communication and social change award sponsored by UOQ.

Papua New Guinea’s Joys Eggins, daughter of leading 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 – “the dilemmas of collaboration, consent and ownership”.

Associate professor David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre, outlined contrasting media campus-based media models with case studies of both Wansolwara at the University of the South Pacific that now publishes this newspaper 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 Ltd. The paper assessed their “publishing profiles and contrasts their independent brands focused on education, environmental issues – particularly climate change and deforestation – human rights, resource development, social justice, culture and language with mainstream media”.

Unitec’s Munawwar Naqvi’s paper presented a critical perspective on communication with communities within development efforts at the grassroots level in central India. Two models, selective interaction and new involvement, were developed from the data collected from semi-structured interviews of different types of non-governmental development organisations.

Next year’s AMIC conference will be in Malaysia and organisers already have the Malaysian Tourism Board lined up as one of the key sponsors. Café Pacific hopes to be represented.

• AMIC conference 2011
• Earlier post-AMIC and media freedom reports:
• Gang members kidnap, rape Indian journalist's niece
• Shooting of top Indian investigative journalist - and "Pacific" quartet photo

McCully and NZ media's moral failure over West Papua

PACIFIC SCOOP led the way in reporting and backgrounding a horrendous video exposing - yet again - Indonesian human rights atrocities against West Papuans. Here, Scoop's duty editor Rory MacKinnon analyses in his column Deadline the week's events in an indictment of Foreign Minister Murray McCully's inept response, lack of media coverage and a pattern of failure by the New Zealand governnent over human rights in East Timor and West Papua.

With all the Hobbit-chat of late you could be forgiven for thinking it was a slow newsweek – but here at the Scoop offices it was nothing of the sort. On Monday, the independent West Papua Media network released video it had received of Indonesian soldiers torturing two Papuan men: punching and kicking them, running a bayonet over one’s throat and burning the other’s penis with a charred stick. [WARNING: link features real and graphic violence]

Within hours the horrific footage made the headlines of Al-Jazeera, the BBC, CNN and the Sydney Morning Herald, while Amnesty International and other NGOs demanded an independent investigation by Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission.

Meanwhile, coverage here in the Shire was practically non-existent, other than here at Pacific Scoop and the equally tiny newsroom at Radio New Zealand International. Even MFAT didn’t bother to brief our foreign minister Murray McCully on the video – despite his going on a two-day trip to Indonesia the very next day.

It might not have been evident in my reporting, but I could sympathise with McCully’s situation. Imagine the midnight phone call; the gut-churning realisation that the complex system of memos and digests and reminders that diplomacy depends on has utterly failed you; knowing that the ‘Friendship Council’ you launched just hours ago will come across to many as a cruel joke and the knowledge that tomorrow morning you will have to walk back into the meeting room and make a very lonely choice about New Zealand’s foreign policy.

But McCully’s choice was a poor and predictable one, and that’s where my sympathy ends. McCully allowed his counterpart Dr Marty Natalegawa to feed him the usual canned response: the Indonesian government took such incidents “very seriously”, their military had already begun an internal investigation and so on and so on.

But as any MFAT official worth his salt would know, the promise of an in internal investigation means absolutely nothing in the context of human rights abuse in Indonesia. Christ, we don’t even trust internal investigations here. But the notion of an Indonesian internal investigation is especially laughable, because we’ve played this game so many times before.

Consider the case of the Balibo Five, a group of journalists killed during the 1975 invasion of East Timor – a group which incidentally included a Kiwi cameraman, Gary Cunningham, and a sixth Australian reporter, Roger East, who was killed two months later while investigating their deaths. In the 35 years since the Indonesian government has refused point-blank to mount any kind of inquiry, even refusing to cooperate with a 1997 Australian coroner’s inquest which implicated Indonesian special forces commander Yunus Yosfiah in the shootings.

Yet despite the court’s findings and pressure directly from the UN, the Serious Crimes Unit in Dili refused to press charges, making extradition impossible. [It should also be noted that despite literally decades of petitions from Cunningham’s own family, no New Zealand government has ever demanded Yosfiah’s arrest either.] Today Yusfiah is the most highly-decorated member of Indonesia’s army, a former Minister of Information and a senior politician, while the foreign journalists he murdered lie in a mass grave in Jakarta. If there was no justice for them, what hope is there for two unmourned villagers in the backblocks of West Papua?

Consider also the Santa Cruz massacre of 1991, when Indonesian soldiers gunned down a Timorese funeral procession for a young man killed by militia. 271 killed, 278 wounded and a further 270 ‘disappeared’ – and again a New Zealander died in the crosshairs; this time the 21-year-old Kamal Bamadhaj. The response from both the New Zealand and Indonesian governments is farcically familiar, as summarised in human rights activist Maire Leadbeater’s secret history Negligent Neighbour: New Zealand’s Complicity in the Invasion and Occupation of Timor-Leste.

[Lack of New Zealand response over both East Timor is also extensively analysed in David Robie's Blood on their Banner: Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific (Zed Books, 1989) and in an article about the Dili massacre in NZ Monthly Review]

It was clear that a cover-up was under way. The Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs sent a preliminary response to the New Zealand Embassy that referred to Kamal’s “accidental death” and insinuated that he should not have been taking part in the demonstration. The official inquiry would conduct a thorough and comprehensive investigation but would also look into Kamal’s ‘activities in Dili during his stay there as well as the nature of his presence among the demonstrators in the incident leading to his death.

Publicly, New Zealand diplomats stressed that they were vigorously pressing for a full explanation of Kamal’s death but the cabled reports suggest the diplomats were resigned to being fobbed off.

The Indonesian government did indeed mount an internal investigation, forming a “Council of Military Honour” and court-martialling nine soldiers and one policeman in 1992. But as Timor-Leste’s president Xanana Gusmao noted, none of those convicted had ordered the shooting, buried the bodies or participated in the attempted cover-up, and neither the report from the National Commission of Inquiry nor the Council of Military Honour’s report have ever been released in full. This was a massacre of literally hundreds of people, caught on camera by foreign journalists. Again, what hope is there for the two men in Monday’s footage?

Yet there is hope: McCully and his prime minister can publicly insist on a genuinely independent investigation. They can join calls in the Pacific Islands Forum for a fact-finding mission into human rights violations in West Papua. They can withdraw their joint training exercises with Indonesian law enforcement until the law is actually enforced in the region.

There are all sorts of things they can do to give Monday’s victims and the people of West Papua hope. But trusting the butchers in Indonesia’s military to sort it out among themselves is not one of them.

Rory MacKinnon is Scoop’s duty editor and political reporter. He also writes about journalism and social issues at www.mediadarlings.net.

Fiji coup-within-coup rumour mill - the price of censorship

By Crosbie Walsh

PACIFIC SCOOP has a well earned reputation for solid journalism. When it publishes opinions they are invariably reasoned and supported with evidence and insight. Until two days ago. When it published a purely speculative article (supported by not a shred of evidence or any indication of the reliability of unnamed sources) about a supposedly looming Fiji coup-within-the-coup.

The article was written by Tupuola Terrence Tavita, editor of the Samoa government newspaper Savali. It is not Tupuola's first trip into virtual space and I doubt it will be his last. Stories are easy to write when you can pull them out of the air. Investigative journalism takes longer.

I draw the article to readers' attention, not for its content, but for the flood of comments it generated. I urge you to read them by clicking here. At my last count, no one agreed with him.

The article does, however, raise the possibility of a coup-within-the-coup. This is nothing new. It has always been a possibility. Support for what the Fiji government is doing and trying to do seems to be increasing (see my blog) but Fiji remains a divided nation with enough "loose cannons" to cause immeasurable harm.

The longer overseas governments, most especially Australia and New Zealand, continue to act in ways that work against Fiji's economic recovery and internal stability -- and fail to support the government's much-needed reforms -- the longer the possibility of another coup will last. This prospect should cause Australia and NZ serious reflection: if the 2006 coup is unable to establish the conditions for long-term stability, it will not be Fiji's last coup, not by a long chalk. As one reader observed:

The next coup d’etat will sink the Ship and all of those on board. Without a shadow of a doubt. It will be violent and many people will be killed. That is what the International Community’s fiddling and stand-off is bringing on.

Adjunct professor Crosbie Walsh, formerly of the University of the South Pacific, publishes his Fiji blog here.

• Pacific Scoop's "insight" piece on "unease in the barracks" by Tupuola
• Victor Lal's Fiji commentary on Coup.four.point.five
• Fiji regime denies rumours
• Spin the Fiji rumours
• Regime warns 'rumour mongers'
  
• FBC's Stanley Simpson on media ethics and freedom issues
  

Fiji censors, bloggers and the future of free expression

EIGHT days ago, Café Pacific made a New Year honours award to the University of the South Pacific's Wansolwara in the "independent newspaper" category. The academic staff person currently steering this journalism student publication is Shailendra Singh, a former editor of The Review news magazine. Global Integrity, an independent governance watchdog, has just caught up with him and interviewed him on his views over Fiji under the military censorship boot. The interview is reproduced here with the Pacific Scoop, Café Pacific and other links cited:

WE ARE GLOBAL: FROM FIJI, A JOURNALIST'S STAND ON CENSORS, BLOGGERS AND THE FUTURE OF FREE EXPRESSION

By Norah Mallaney of Global Integrity

In the South Pacific, I found a case study in modern censorship, as Fiji’s three-year-old military government collides with a once free local press, an emerging blogging culture and an ambivalent international community. Some basic facts are contested, but it is clear that free expression in Fiji is under intense pressure, in a sharp departure from Fijian cultural and political tradition. I talked over email with journalist and media academic Shailendra Singh, based in capital of Suva, about the future of free expression in Fiji.

Despite increasing government control over print media, Shailendra is determined. Journalists get heat from all sides, as even reporting the government’s arguments for media regulation has become controversial. But Shailendra argues for free exchange over partisanship. “It is absurd to fight censorship with censorship” Shailendra told me.

Shailendra worked with Global Integrity as a lead journalist in 2008, writing the Corruption Notebook: Fiji. As a senior lecturer on journalism, Shailendra encourages his fellow journalists and students to pursue stories to the greatest extent possible under the current restrictions. Bainimarama’s government, who seized power in a 2006 coup d’etat, has clamped down on the media. In a 2006 radio address, Bainimarama advised pro-democracy advocates to "shut their mouth," lest the military "shut it for them.” The arrest or deportation of prominent journalists followed.

This has never before been seen in the island nation, with the brief exception of a period during the 1987 coup staged by then military strongman, Sitiveni Rabuka. After the 1987 takeover, the media eventually regained full reporting rights. The future does not seem as certain now and Fijians turn to regional “parachute journalists” or anonymous bloggers for independent yet at times questionably reliable news. “In many cases the blogs are vitriolic and abusive,” Shailendra said. “On the other hand, some credible commentators who can no longer publish their articles in the local dailies have set up blogsites.”

Shailendra worries about the spill-over effect Fiji’s censorship may have on the region and he has spoken out on the need for Australia and New Zealand to put pressure on Pacific island governments that threaten press freedom: “Hopefully, they [AUS and NZ] will soon come to see that their own interests are at risk when basic freedoms are removed, and they will act accordingly instead of remaining aloof.”

“If you are looking for a silver lining,” Shailendra said, “the situation in Fiji has not only offered journalism an opportunity for self-reflection and improvement, but also a chance to focus attention on some very important areas that were overshadowed and neglected due to the heavy emphasis on politics. Local media is running a lot more human-interest stories. There is greater coverage of ordinary people, rural news and development issues.”

You can read our discussion below.

An inner-determination comes through in Shailendra’s responses, reflecting the fact that while open, public dissemination of information may be quelled for now, Fiji’s legacy of an active media will outlast the current crisis.

Norah Mallaney: Your Corruption Notebook: Fiji centered on the feeling of disillusionment among journalists and citizens who might have once hailed the 2006 coup as positive progress. Has this trend continued? Is current political dissent published in newspapers and other media outlets (radio etc)? Or is this more spoken of in private circles?

Shailendra Singh: The Fiji government currently censors the news media. As a result, political dissent is not published. There is no law stopping people from discussing politics in private. But people would naturally be more cautious than they used to be about what they say, and who they say it to. Apart from a brief period after the coups of 1987, Fiji has always had a free media. The country was on a par with Australia and New Zealand when it came to media freedom and freedom of speech. There was, of course, the usual ranting by politicians and occasional threats in Parliament to shut down newspapers, or to bring in new laws to curb “irresponsible” reporting when sex scandals or corruption involving politicians were exposed. But until recently, no such laws were implemented, and journalists, by and large, went about doing their work without fear.

Now, for the first time, the media is under full censorship, which is an alien experience for us. Current censorship is by decree. But government plans to bring in a new media promulgation that will curb some of the freedoms that we took for granted in the past. The government says tighter media regulations are needed to curb abuses by journalists. It blames the media for inciting racial animosities. It says such journalistic transgressions often go unpunished.

These assertions cannot be dismissed out of hand. Media has made mistakes. Some of these mistakes have been costly. But rather than censorship, training for journalists and supporting the setting up of independent media monitoring organisations, or media accountability systems, would be the proper thing to do.

Pio Tikoduadua, the permanent secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, recently said that Fiji’s media would no longer be self-regulatory under the new media decree, which is expected to come in force in 2010. Under the new promulgation, it is expected that a new body will be formed to hear grievances by people who feel they have been unfairly treated by the media. This new body will either replace or work alongside the Fiji Media Council, a self-regulatory body set up by Fiji’s news media industry.

So self-regulation, which is practised by most democracies, could become a thing of the past in Fiji. The government’s argument is that the media cannot be judge and jury of its own conduct. It says the Fiji Media Council has failed to uphold ethics and improve standards. The media argues that excessive laws and punitive measures by government will only shackle the media, which could have grave repercussions in future. For instance, this government is strongly against corruption. Draconian media laws would be counterproductive for government’s anti-corruption drive.

Future governments may not be as well intentioned as the current government, and they may inherit a media law that they can use to shield their corrupt activities.

Norah: Blogs (both Fiji-based and in the broader Pacific region) seem to have taken on an identity as the “critical eyes” of the current government. Who is their intended audience? Considering internet penetrability rates, who is actually reading? How high is their credibility in Fiji and in the broader region?

Shailendra: Blogs have become an outlet for opponents of the present government to vent their frustrations, as they do not have any other avenue to voice their opinions. Blogs offer anonymity, thus safety from arrest and possible prosecution in court. Media consumers in Fiji are used to an outspoken and fairly aggressive media. Currently the media in Fiji has been tamed through a decree that the government introduced to encourage “a greater degree of responsibility” from the media. Journalists that fall foul of the decree face jail as well as stiff fines.

Readers in Fiji know that the media is being censored. They understand that the media is not able to report everything that goes on. There is a vacuum concerning government and political news, so a good number of readers are turning to blogs as an additional, or alternative, source of information.

Many blogs are based on opinion, hearsay or rumour. Ordinarily, such rumours would be investigated and reported by the mainstream news media. But presently this is not the case. So there is a lot of rumour mongering. People who read blogs choose to either trust or distrust the information.

It cannot be claimed that the blogs have taken on an identity as the “critical eyes” of the current government. For one, the bloggers are anonymous so their credibility becomes an issue. Some bloggers clearly have sinister motives. The bloggers are not bound by any journalistic principles, guidelines or ethics. They often publish without checking. In many cases the blogs are vitriolic and abusive. Many commentators and commentaries are racist.

On the other hand, some credible commentators who can no longer publish their articles in the local dailies have set up blogsites. This includes an economist and political commentator, Professor Wadan Narsey, who used to write regular columns in the papers. But the newspapers have stopped running his articles due to censorship. Professor Narsey posts his blogs under his names. His most recent posting was an analysis of the 2010 budget. In this instance the blog is playing the role of “critical eyes” on government as you put it. New technology has enabled Narsey to publish his work in an instant and makes it harder for governments to silence people.

However, internet penetrability is low in Fiji, so it would be mostly the urban educated who have access to and read these blogs.

Norah: How has the shift in media censorship impacted on the lessons, training and student population at the Journalism School at University of the South Pacific?

Shailendra: In terms of media education and research, we have a unique, real life case study of censorship at work to examine and test against textbook theories. We cannot report freely, but we can debate the situation in class presentations and seminars, and write essays and research reports.

Also, we invited the Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum as a speaker recently. Our students had an opportunity to question him. They wrote news reports about what he said. The AG’s comments were widely reported, and they generated a major debate among regional media observers and commentators.

Some people were of the view that the AG should not have been invited as a speaker. Our view is that it is absurd to fight censorship with censorship. We as journalists should be aware that there are two or more sides to an issue. Furthermore, had we not invited the AG and reported his comments, there would have been no discussion or rekindling of interest, awareness and generating continued publicity about Fiji.

If you are looking for a silver lining, the situation in Fiji has not only offered journalism an opportunity for self-reflection and improvement, but also a chance to focus attention on some very important areas that were overshadowed and neglected due to the heavy emphasis on politics. Local media is running a lot more human-interest stories. There is greater coverage of ordinary people, rural news and development issues.

For instance, a recent issue of USP journalism’s training newspaper, Wansolwara, had a front-page report on how gaming centers in Suva were luring young people to play and spend money there. The story led to a police crackdown on 24-hr gaming centers. The article received a high commendation at the 2009 Journalism Education Association of Australia and New Zealand student awards in Perth, Australia, last month (December '09).

Another story on how the legal marriageable age for girls at 16 was leading to their exploitation has resulted in the law being changed in Fiji. We have also focused on the environment with students researching and writing stories on coral reef degradation, shark-fin fishery and climate change impacts.

Norah: In a recent interview you did with Radio Australia, you spoke of the need for greater pressure from Australian and New Zealand aid donors to keep media freedom high in the region.

Shailendra: Australia and NZ are the largest aid donors and regional superpowers. As such they have a lot of influence with Pacific Island countries. The two nations are understandably reluctant to be seen as meddling in the internal affairs of their smaller neighbours. But these two countries should not keep silent, or make token gestures, when fundamental freedoms are threatened.

For instance, the Laisenia Qarase government that was ousted from power in Fiji by the military in 2006 had declared its intention to bring in a new media law, and also to introduce legislation to pardon people behind the 2000 coup. In my view, Australia and New Zealand did not do enough to try and deter the Qarase government from taking these apparently unconstitutional actions.

Some Pacific Island governments often threaten to restrict media freedoms. When they do this, Australia and New Zealand should speak out, not only because it is the morally correct thing to do, but also because their own interests are threatened when regional governments move to place unreasonable curbs on basic human rights. Apart form the massive aid the two countries pour into the region, they have a lot of investments in Pacific Island countries. If the media is muzzled, it will not be able to report on government corruption, and also, how efficiently aid is utilised.

Corruption is rife in some regional countries, and aid is also hijacked and diverted on a regular basis. The media often reports this, and this is why some governments are so keen to silence the media. In the absence of a free media, the corrupt will become even more emboldened, and the scale of the problems will only increase. So Australia and NZ need to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to such issues. They need to persuade, sometimes coerce leaders, into institutionalizing transparency and accountability, if for no other reason, than for the sake of their own taxpayers and investments.

Australia and New Zealand are not averse to arm-twisting and riding roughshod over Pacific Island sensitivities when they feel that their interests are directly threatened, or when they are trying to gain an advantage, such as in trade talks. Aid has been used both as a carrot and stick. Examples of this abound.

The recent Julian Moti saga is a case in point. An Australian court dropped child-sex charges against Moti, a former Solomon Islands attorney general, last month (December). The Australian Federal Police (AFP) had resurrected the charges nearly 10 years after they were dismissed by a court in Vanuatu. The Supreme Court in Brisbane found that the prosecution was an abuse of process by police because its payments to the alleged victim's family in Vanuatu, totaling $AUD150, 000, brought the administration of justice into disrepute. The judge ruled against Moti's claim that the case against him was politically motivated as a result of the Australian government's concerns that his role as Solomon Islands attorney general would undermine a peacekeeping mission Australia was heading in the Solomons.

But many respected commentators believe this is precisely the reason the AFP went after Moti with such extraordinary determination. So it is not for nothing that Australia and New Zealand are sometimes referred to as “bullies” by their smaller neighbours. I am guessing that these two countries do not feel that freedom of the media is an important enough issue requiring their diplomatic intervention. Why else would they remain silent when media freedoms are threatened? Hopefully they will soon come to see that their own interests are at risk when basic freedoms are removed, and they will act accordingly instead of remaining aloof.

• Café Pacific's 2009 media awards
• Global Integrity
  

Criminal libel case dropped against Tempo Semanal

How Pacific Scoop reported José Belo's presidential award.

From Tempo Semanal

A YEAR ago Tempo Semanal published a series of stories that became known as the "SMS Scandal" in which it alleged corruption by Timor-Leste's Justice Minister Lucia Lobato, along with Timorese and Indonesian business people, in relation to projects under her ministry. These projects included the Becora Prison, uniforms for prison guards and Timor-Leste national identity cards projects.

Café Pacific has followed this affair and TS stories include:

1. Tempo Semanal: Edition 108: SMS texts evidence: Minister for Justice Gives Herself And Friends Projects
2. Tempo Semanal Edisaun 108 SMS: MJ Fo Projektu ba An Rasik no Ninia Belum Sira
3. Translation Tempo Semanal Edition 135: (Minister of Justice SMS Corruption Scandal Continues)
4. "Identity Card Project Breaches Law No. 10/2005 and Confirms Allegations of KKN." [In the Ministry of Justice] "Identity Card Project Breaches Law No. 10/2005 and Confirms Allegations of KKN [1]."

Lobato reacted angrily and in October 2008 lodged a criminal libel case against Tempo Semanal and its director José Antonio Belo.

Browse stories on the criminal defamation case:

1. Justice minister sues East Timor newspaper
2. Pacific Freedom Forum Petitions Against "Unconstitutional" Defamation Case
3. Defamation Case against Tempo Semanal: Lao Hamutuk
4. ETAN urges dropping of defamation charges against Timorese editor
5. TAPOL protests against defamation charges against Timorese journalist

Lobato reported the case of criminal defamation against José Belo to prosecutors. Belo was investigated by the International Prosecutor on 19 January 2009 and has been under city detention since then. He has to report to the prosecutor if he wants to travel away from Dili more than 15 days. Since last year, Belo has only made two trips out of Timor-Leste and had to refuse three invitations for foreign travel. He went to Australia for 10 days and to Indonesia for four days.

Pictured: Lucia Lobato - Minister of Justice.

On 13 November 2009, PNTL delivered a two-page notification letter to Tempo Semanal offices in Palapaso Dili.

These letters informed Tempo Semanal officially that the case of criminal defamation had ceased on 15 June 2009 and were signed by International Prosecutor Jose Landim.

The notification letter stated:

The crime of defamation was decriminalised by the new Timor-Leste Criminal Code, DL No. 19/2009 of 8 April 2009, as a result of which the accused can no longer be held criminally liable.

In effect, pursuant to the provisions of article 3, 1. of Timor-Leste's new Criminal Code, 'nobody can be held criminally liable as a result of facts prescribed as criminal acts at the relevant time it was carried into action if the law subsequently ceases to consider it as a crime'.

As such, because it is not now possible to continue with the criminal proceedings against the accused, the proceedings currently on foot are hereby ordered to be closed pursuant to article 235, 1. c) of the Criminal Code.

Tempo Semanal director Jose Antonio Belo congratulated the Prosecutor-General and all her staff by putting the law in place. However, at the same time Belo was disappointed the case would not reach court so that the facts of the corruption case might come before the public.

Belo said he was aware that the then Prosecutor-General had demanded that Justice Minister Lucia Lobato submit more evidence before the case could be sent to court:

Tempo Semanal and I have been left in confusion for an entire year and we don't know the situation of the case against us but this afternoon we have receive this notification letter.

As a Timorese journalist, it is very sad to see our Minister of Justice's actions by lodging a criminal defamation case against Tempo Semanal and me while her office was producing the new East Timor Penal Code which decriminalised defamation.

It seems like the Minister for Justice is confused about Timorese law.

Belo said he would like to make it clear to Tempo Semanal readers that “we are not afraid to go court to prove our story and that's why we have requested the kindness from the good office of the deputy Prime Minister to encourage the Minister of Justice to carry on the case.”

Jose Belo and Tempo Semanal also thanked all those friends who gave courage and support at this difficult time.

It remains unclear if the minister will ever faces charge in relation to the accusations of corruption that have been made against her by Tempo Semanal, the Provedor, the Parliamentary Opposition and many others.

Tempo Semanal's award on Pacific Scoop