Showing posts with label wansolwara. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wansolwara. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
The digital media revolution, a free press and student journalism
Kia ora tatou and ni sa bula vinaka,
FIRSTLY, I wish to acknowledge the people of Fiji for returning this wonderful country to democracy last year, and also to the University of the South Pacific and Dr Shailendra Singh and his team for inviting me here to speak at this 21st Anniversary Journalism Awards event.
[Acknowledgements to various university and media VIPs]
As I started off these awards here at the University of the South Pacific in 1999 during an incredibly interesting and challenging time, it is a great honour to return for this event marking the 21st anniversary of the founding of the regional Pacific journalism programme.
Thus it is also an honour to be sharing the event with Monsieur Michel Djokovic, the Ambassador of France given how important French aid has been for this programme.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
‘Scapegoat Season’ at USP fails to hide achievements
By DAVID ROBIE
SO it’s Scapegoat Season again at the University of the South Pacific journalism programme. Barely more than a year has elapsed since the last incumbent was dumped as head.
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Dr Ian Weber ... out the USP "revolving door". Photo: Jay Folio blog |
His litany of complaints about the USP establishment is much the same as many coordinators have expressed in the past, in private if not always publicly – “favouritism, lack of consultation and unethical pressure” plus general lack of support.
So what’s new? Well, this time Dr Weber has launched into an extraordinary and unfounded personal attack on his distant colleague, a local Fiji Islander who is well on the way to becoming the first Pacific Islands media educator at the regional university with a doctorate in journalism.
And Shailendra Singh, a former editor of the Fiji news magazine The Review who has put in far more of the hard yards for the benefit of Fiji and Pacific journalism over the past decade than any expatriate fly-by-nighter, is not even on the Laucala campus in Fiji.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
New models of funding needed, say NZ investigative journalists
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Pacific Media Centre's David Robie ... “We need to educate the universities." Photo: Jamie Small/Te Waha Nui |
By Jamie Small of Te Waha Nui
Nicky Hager, author of The Hollow Men and Other People’s Wars, says there is not enough support for investigative journalists in countries like New Zealand.
“I hope that one day there will be a return to serious public funding for investigative journalism,” he says.
Hager says most investigative journalists do not have much industry training or support. They are often citizens who begin investigating a crime or wrongdoing and do not realise they have become a journalist.
Professor David Robie, director of AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre, believes he has an answer.
“As the mainstream media reduces its reporting skills, universities should be picking up the slack,” he says.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
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
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Welcome revival for Wansolwara's international credentials
SO WANSOLWARA finally has its own new-look Facebook page (three days old), with a revival of its online edition coming along soon (promised for a good while now). Excellent move. The original Pacific Journalism Online website student team at USP scooped the pool in the Journalism Education Association (JEA) awards that year and were treated to a standing ovation at Moolaabaa, Queensland, for their coverage of the George Speight putsch in May 2000. International journalism standards? Yes, they started way back - far more than a decade ago. Pity the USP journalism website slipped into disuse in March 2007. But good to see an online version of Wansolwara finally returning alongside its newspaper edition, printed by the Fiji Sun. Congratulations Sherita and Sheenal Sharma and their team.
Wansolwara has been publishing for 17 years now. Has any other Pacific (or NZ) journalism school matched that? Never. (I notice the newspaper has recently dropped the list of international awards it has won - too much "global" evidence for some?) Radio Pasifik has a strong history too and great to see the revival there with Semi Francis and his team.
It is also great to see the USP Journalism students and graduates bag prizes in the Development Asia Environment Awards. Well done - and especially Fiji TV team leader Anish Chand! (Even though this belated praise actually refers to awards in 2010).
A story about a frothy debate over the state of journalism education at USP compiled by the Pacific Media Centre team while recently in Suva for the Media and Democracy in the Pacific conference seems to have stirred some region-wide interest. It was picked up by other media, including the Fiji Sun. Here it is for those who missed out:
Pacific media educators call for industry incentives for young journalists
By Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Alex Perrottet in Suva
JOURNALISM educators in the Pacific have called for more and better industry incentives and collaboration with journalism schools as a way of improving reporting standards.
A robust debate at the University of the South Pacific among experienced journalism educators revealed that improving the quality of education was an ongoing task.
But it could be helped if journalists had some motivation to stay in the job, instead of moving to higher paid global NGOs.
Lack of experience
A former head of journalism at USP and current PhD candidate at the University of Queensland, Shailendra Singh, said he observed a “plethora of writing” and a “diversity of views” in the Australian media that was lacking in Fiji.
“In Australia, there are bald-headed and pot-bellied journalists. Fiji doesn’t see that due to a high turnover of staff,” he said.
USP's Radio Pasifik manager Semi Francis confirmed that media organisations in Fiji employed students straight from school, overlooking university graduates.
Lecturer Misa Vicky Lepou from the National University of Samoa, and a onetime graduate from USP, said it was the same in Samoa.
She confirmed there were many schoolleavers in journalism competing with graduates, and their "substandard work" was noticeable. She said the industry still criticised the journalism school for the poor level of journalism among young reporters.
Improving standards
Dr Marc Edge, current head of journalism at USP, said he was there to “increase the standard of journalism not just in Fiji, but across the Pacific”.
“It needs to improve. Grammar, subject-verb agreement, style, little things like this need to improve considerably,” he said, adding that he too was still learning about the region, having arrived from Canada fairly recently.
He said low staffing at USP in recent years had not helped.
However, Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie responded that the journalism schools at USP and at the University of Papua New Guinea had achieved a lot on the international stage, particularly with USP’s success with the award-winning newspaper Wansolwara.
“At that stage in the 1990s, no New Zealand journalism course had a regular newspaper. We [at AUT University] do have today Te Waha Nui, which I started with a colleague after I came from USP, on the basis of the experience at USP.
“So I think it is hats off to USP - and UPNG in the past - and so on. Wansolwara has received quite a lot of awards. This paper [he waved a copy of Te Waha Nui] has also been an award-winning paper, but it hasn’t won nearly as many awards as Wansolwara.”
Commercial reality
Dr Robie also pointed out that Wansolwara integrated the "commercial reality" of producing a paper, unlike most other journalism schools, which were typically funded by the university or school.
“So students don’t get that broader picture of the economic reality and the difficulties producing a newspaper but Wansolwara does.”
Singh was also concerned to point out that there was much hard work done on the paper in previous years, which had continued under the work of former Fiji Times journalist Irene Manueli.
“The person working day and night on Wansolwara is Irene Manueli. Is she here, has she been acknowledged?”
A resounding round of applause broke out.
Dr Edge remained optimistic about the quality of future USP graduates.
“The first-year students we have this year are incredibly bright. They are as bright as any students I have taught anywhere in the world,” he said.
“And I believe with the kind of training and education they are going to get in the next three years we’ll soon be graduating students of great passion and depth.”
But Singh reminded Dr Edge that there had been great achievements in the past.
“It is not year zero, and you need to understand the local context ... If you come with the wrong attitude you put a lot of people off, and then it’s a very bad start.”
Room for improvement
Professor Robie also said Australia and New Zealand could learn from USP, as its internship period was six weeks, while AUT internships were only two weeks and far too short.
He said journalism schools needed to train students in an ever-increasing range of complex skills.
“One of the things we like to look for in graduates is the range of skills and the capability, because the media industry is changing at such a pace… they have to be incredibly flexible.”
He spoke about giving students practice in real reporting of "live" events against deadline pressure such as AUT's Pacific Media Centre has done with the Pacific Scoop coverage of the Pacific Islands Forum in the last three years.
“It surprises me that no other journalism school anywhere in the region covers the forum, because you’ve got an opportunity there of such a range of issues and the politicians in one place, the NGOs and so on - so it’s an enormously beneficial training environment for any journalism school.”
He said AUT was focusing on producing “well-rounded graduates with critical thinking skills, strong exposure to business, economics, environment, government, history, politics, human rights and culture.
“And education is so vitally important in that process, just simply being trained in a newsroom is not enough. It’s a combination of the industry and journalism schools.”
In the Fijian context, Singh said there was a need to distinguish between responsible journalism and self-censorship, which was of growing concern in Fiji.
“More cautious, more responsible and more circumspect, doesn’t mean self-censorship,” he said.
Dr Edge said USP was looking to begin a postgraduate diploma in digital journalism in the near future, as well as an option to undertake a master’s degree.
In past years, USP had a postgraduate journalism programme and there have been graduates but this was dropped two years ago because of USP funding cuts.
Alex Perrottet is contributing editor of Pacific Media Watch. He was at the USP symposium as both a a reporter and as a research paper presenter.
Papers presented at the conference
USP Journalism bags top environmental journalism awards
Media and democracy in the South Pacific - PMC photo gallery
Frontline Reporters - 2000 USP Journalism video (part 1 of 2)
Wansolwara has been publishing for 17 years now. Has any other Pacific (or NZ) journalism school matched that? Never. (I notice the newspaper has recently dropped the list of international awards it has won - too much "global" evidence for some?) Radio Pasifik has a strong history too and great to see the revival there with Semi Francis and his team.
It is also great to see the USP Journalism students and graduates bag prizes in the Development Asia Environment Awards. Well done - and especially Fiji TV team leader Anish Chand! (Even though this belated praise actually refers to awards in 2010).
A story about a frothy debate over the state of journalism education at USP compiled by the Pacific Media Centre team while recently in Suva for the Media and Democracy in the Pacific conference seems to have stirred some region-wide interest. It was picked up by other media, including the Fiji Sun. Here it is for those who missed out:
Pacific media educators call for industry incentives for young journalists
By Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Alex Perrottet in Suva
JOURNALISM educators in the Pacific have called for more and better industry incentives and collaboration with journalism schools as a way of improving reporting standards.
A robust debate at the University of the South Pacific among experienced journalism educators revealed that improving the quality of education was an ongoing task.
But it could be helped if journalists had some motivation to stay in the job, instead of moving to higher paid global NGOs.
Lack of experience
A former head of journalism at USP and current PhD candidate at the University of Queensland, Shailendra Singh, said he observed a “plethora of writing” and a “diversity of views” in the Australian media that was lacking in Fiji.
“In Australia, there are bald-headed and pot-bellied journalists. Fiji doesn’t see that due to a high turnover of staff,” he said.
![]() |
Radio Pasifik's new look studio with presenter Kirry Veikoso. Photo: David Robie |
Lecturer Misa Vicky Lepou from the National University of Samoa, and a onetime graduate from USP, said it was the same in Samoa.
She confirmed there were many schoolleavers in journalism competing with graduates, and their "substandard work" was noticeable. She said the industry still criticised the journalism school for the poor level of journalism among young reporters.
Improving standards
Dr Marc Edge, current head of journalism at USP, said he was there to “increase the standard of journalism not just in Fiji, but across the Pacific”.
“It needs to improve. Grammar, subject-verb agreement, style, little things like this need to improve considerably,” he said, adding that he too was still learning about the region, having arrived from Canada fairly recently.
He said low staffing at USP in recent years had not helped.
However, Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie responded that the journalism schools at USP and at the University of Papua New Guinea had achieved a lot on the international stage, particularly with USP’s success with the award-winning newspaper Wansolwara.
“At that stage in the 1990s, no New Zealand journalism course had a regular newspaper. We [at AUT University] do have today Te Waha Nui, which I started with a colleague after I came from USP, on the basis of the experience at USP.
“So I think it is hats off to USP - and UPNG in the past - and so on. Wansolwara has received quite a lot of awards. This paper [he waved a copy of Te Waha Nui] has also been an award-winning paper, but it hasn’t won nearly as many awards as Wansolwara.”
Commercial reality
Dr Robie also pointed out that Wansolwara integrated the "commercial reality" of producing a paper, unlike most other journalism schools, which were typically funded by the university or school.
“So students don’t get that broader picture of the economic reality and the difficulties producing a newspaper but Wansolwara does.”
Singh was also concerned to point out that there was much hard work done on the paper in previous years, which had continued under the work of former Fiji Times journalist Irene Manueli.
“The person working day and night on Wansolwara is Irene Manueli. Is she here, has she been acknowledged?”
A resounding round of applause broke out.
Dr Edge remained optimistic about the quality of future USP graduates.
“The first-year students we have this year are incredibly bright. They are as bright as any students I have taught anywhere in the world,” he said.
“And I believe with the kind of training and education they are going to get in the next three years we’ll soon be graduating students of great passion and depth.”
But Singh reminded Dr Edge that there had been great achievements in the past.
“It is not year zero, and you need to understand the local context ... If you come with the wrong attitude you put a lot of people off, and then it’s a very bad start.”
Room for improvement
Professor Robie also said Australia and New Zealand could learn from USP, as its internship period was six weeks, while AUT internships were only two weeks and far too short.
He said journalism schools needed to train students in an ever-increasing range of complex skills.
“One of the things we like to look for in graduates is the range of skills and the capability, because the media industry is changing at such a pace… they have to be incredibly flexible.”
He spoke about giving students practice in real reporting of "live" events against deadline pressure such as AUT's Pacific Media Centre has done with the Pacific Scoop coverage of the Pacific Islands Forum in the last three years.
“It surprises me that no other journalism school anywhere in the region covers the forum, because you’ve got an opportunity there of such a range of issues and the politicians in one place, the NGOs and so on - so it’s an enormously beneficial training environment for any journalism school.”
He said AUT was focusing on producing “well-rounded graduates with critical thinking skills, strong exposure to business, economics, environment, government, history, politics, human rights and culture.
“And education is so vitally important in that process, just simply being trained in a newsroom is not enough. It’s a combination of the industry and journalism schools.”
In the Fijian context, Singh said there was a need to distinguish between responsible journalism and self-censorship, which was of growing concern in Fiji.
“More cautious, more responsible and more circumspect, doesn’t mean self-censorship,” he said.
Dr Edge said USP was looking to begin a postgraduate diploma in digital journalism in the near future, as well as an option to undertake a master’s degree.
In past years, USP had a postgraduate journalism programme and there have been graduates but this was dropped two years ago because of USP funding cuts.
Alex Perrottet is contributing editor of Pacific Media Watch. He was at the USP symposium as both a a reporter and as a research paper presenter.
Papers presented at the conference
USP Journalism bags top environmental journalism awards
Media and democracy in the South Pacific - PMC photo gallery
Frontline Reporters - 2000 USP Journalism video (part 1 of 2)
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Global battle for images and ideas - challenging the West's 'news duopoly'
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20180310043012im_/http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GTu85rHXL8U/TiveEYeU4YI/AAAAAAAABbE/VtvTxWChtVA/s400/david_indiajune2011_profdayathussu_550.jpg)
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.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20180310043012im_/http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hC_SdCiFH7I/Tivd30evy7I/AAAAAAAABa8/1qunfMMUfmA/s320/david_indiajune2011_joyseggins_crop.jpg)
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
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20180310043012im_/http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0pMFB1kBW-g/Tivdaw3gJaI/AAAAAAAABa0/YBRAbl7gQN0/s400/david_indiajune2011_fijipresent_crop.jpg)
Monday, March 1, 2010
A Fiji students’ internet coup – a decade on
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20180310043012im_/http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FW-NEhC11CI/S4y2Qkbmi_I/AAAAAAAABBg/OnVL05nW_Iw/s320/ps_youtube_videoclips.jpg)
An earlier video (1999), Pasifik Niusbeat, tells the story of the early stages of online newsreporting and Radio Pacific at USP. You’ll recognise many young media faces familiar around the region today. Another video, Fri Pres, covers the fight for media freedom across the region in 1996. Produced and presented by David Robie, and reported by Stevenson Liu and Priscilla Raepom, it was broadcast by EMTV in Papua New Guinea and Fiji Television. The astonishing thing about this University of Papua New Guinea programme is that while it was made 16 years ago, it could just as easily have been talking about post-coup Fiji censorship and the rest of the Pacific today.
Pictured, a clip from Fri Pres with then PNG Forestry Minister Tim Nelville talking about a death threat on talkback radio.
- Frontline reporters: A students’ internet coup
- Frontline Reporters: Coup coverage by student journalists [USP video]
- Press freedom videos on Pacific Media Centre YouTube channel
Friday, January 8, 2010
Fiji censors, bloggers and the future of free expression
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20180310043012im_/http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FW-NEhC11CI/S0fR4MVdbTI/AAAAAAAAA_I/nTQdnaDIaxE/s400/globalintegrity_logoedit-.jpg)
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 f
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20180310043012im_/http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FW-NEhC11CI/S0fRDBYpc9I/AAAAAAAAA-4/o-7WojzB8yE/s320/fiji_shailendra_singh.jpg)
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 arti
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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.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Café Pacific’s awards to spice up the new decade
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Newspaper of the year – The Fiji Times: As a crusading daily under the helm of battling Netani Rika, it is hard to go past this Australian-owned publication – the strongest daily newspaper in Fiji in spite of its past political baggage and track record that goes right back to its colonial days in Levuka. While Bainimarama’s regime regularly chokes for breakfast over this Murdoch paper and blames it (along with Fiji Television) for the “need” to impose its promised/threatened new media law, the rest of the region can thank Rika and his team for keeping up the good fight and exposing life under media censorship.
But we should not get carried away with the accolades. The Times still has plenty of flaws in both its coverage and strategy. The region also needs to acknowledge the courage of many other journalists in Fiji and the resolve and commitment of other media in tackling the regime in rather more subtle and intriguing ways. Things need to be kept in perspective globally too, there is a quantum leap between the relatively mild (but inexcusable) press freedom abuses in Fiji and the truly repugnant violence against media in such countries as Burma and even in a democracy such as the Philippines where 30 journalists can be assassinated by private militia in one dreadful killing field obscenity and when Filipino radio talkback broadcasters or reporters, in particular, can be murdered with near impunity for exposing corruption.
Media film – Balibo: The on screen version of the murder of five journalists working for Australian news media – two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander – by Indonesian special forces invading East Timor on 16 October 1975 has revived controversial and painful memories. Not only has the Robert Connolly film reflected on the wounds of the past, and even stirred the wrath of the widow of the lead journalist killed, Greg Shackleton, it has triggered debate about journalistic professionalism in an age when bravado was perhaps more important than the safety concerns dominant today.
In a recent clandestine showing of the film – banned in Indonesia – to journalists in Jakarta the emphasis was on the “journalism” rather than the human rights issues. Warief Djajanto Basorie of the Jakarta Post wrote:
Balibo can be labelled a political film, a war film, a human rights film, or a journalism film.Basorie claimed the five murdered newsmen were “embedded journalists” – embedded with Fretilin.
After the Makassar screening, discussion focused on the journalism. The question asked: As journalists, what can you learn from the film?
In covering a conflict, it tells you to make a choice. Either you stay or you go, replied one participant.
“I would go,” he said emphatically.
Most of the 31 journalists present agreed. The majority argument was to leave the war zone, prioritising safety and the ability to continue reporting in the future.
At least two participants, however, insisted they would stay for the story because it was “too big a story to miss”.
Independent newspaper – Wansolwara: The student journalism newspaper published by the University of the South Pacific deserved to win the Ossie Award for regular publications this year for publishing under a state censorship regime. Not only did the courageous students publish a special edition examining the media in Fiji under a military regime, but they also reported global warming, environmental issues and human rights in the region.
Wansolwara, which has not only won the most Ossie awards of any publication in Australia, NZ or the Pacific (10, plus it scooped the pool in 2000 with the online and print coverage of the George Speight coup). For 13 years, the newspaper has been self-funded by the students themselves through advertising revenue. But this year, the students brought off a coup themselves – with a deal to publish their newspaper as a liftout in the daily newspaper Fiji Sun. This immediately lifted their circulation from 2000 to more than 20,000.
Unfortunately the Reader’s Digest judge surprisingly overlooked this newspaper’s achievements and quality and awarded the “best regular publication” prize to AUT University’s Te Waha Nui instead.
Media monitoring agency – Reporters sans frontières (RSF): This award is well-deserved globally for 2009, but RSF needs to beef up its Pacific content, not just concentrate on Fiji and one or two other higher profile issues. In its roundup for the year, RSF highlighted the Ampatuan massacre – largest ever killing of journalists in a single day - and the unprecedented wave of arrests and convictions of journalists and bloggers in Iran. The agency’s summary for the year:
76 journalists killed (60 in 2008)Check out the full report.
33 journalists kidnapped
573 journalists arrested
1456 physically assaulted
570 media censored
157 journalists fled their countries
1 blogger died in prison
151 bloggers and cyber-dissidents arrested
61 physically assaulted
60 countries affected by online censorship
Incidentally, for those with special concerns on internet freedoms, it is good news that Lucie Morillon has been appointed as the new head of RSF. She established the RSF office in New York five years ago and has long been a champion of online free speech.
The efforts of the new Pacific Freedom Forum, the International Federation of Journalists and the Pacific Media Centre's Pacific Media Watch also deserve praise for their specifically Oceania work.
Independent blog – Croz Walsh’s Fiji: Crosbie Walsh is not actually a journalist. However, as an adjunct professor and retired founding director of the University of the South Pacific’s Development Studies programme, he is an acute observer and commentator about facts and falsehoods about Fiji. Thrust into blogging almost by accident (he became rather frustrated over poor media coverage of the realities in Fiji), he established his own excellent and reliable information and analysis website in a bold attempt to make sense of the complexities of Fiji’s political, social and economic order since the 2006 coup.
In the process, his blog has embarrassed many leading journalists who profess to be “experts” on Fiji by repeatedly exposing the shallowness of their reporting. He has also been a counterfoil for some of the rabid anti-Fiji regime blogs (including several run or contributed to by journalists) and their propaganda and lies. The context and complexities may be frequently missing from mainstream media coverage, but Croz is filling many of the gaps and balancing the misrepresentations. A comment in a recent posting has taken AAP's Tamara McLean to task:
A Tamara McLean article in the NZ Herald/AAP provides readers with a rehash of what was once news, and "fresh" comments from "an Auckland University academic sympathetic to Bainimarama" (Prof Hugh Laracy) countered by three "Pacific specialists (Dr Jon Fraenkel, Jone Baledrokadroka and Prof Brij Lal) at the Australian National University" who are not." The use of "academic" and "specialists" tells readers where Tamara is coming from, but it's neither subtle nor accurate for all four are academics and specialists.Special freedom of speech award - José Belo: For remaining defiant in the face of threats and a legal onslaught over his exposes of corruption that could have le
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Pictured: A National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) protest against the killing of media workers (Photo: Bayanihan Post) and José Belo of East Timor at work (Photo: Etan).
- One dangerous place for reporters
- Ampatuan massacre map and timeline
- How should we respond to Balibo?
- Wansolwara's hot press deal
- Wars and disputed elections: The most dangerous stories for journalists
- Croz Walsh on Fiji snippets and the media
- Bainimarama winner in Fiji's darkest hour
- Croz Walsh's PIPSA paper on Fiji blogs
- Criminal defamation case dropped against Tempo Semanal
- Cafe Pacific's New Year awards at PMC
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