Keynote speaker and former University of the South Pacific Journalism Programme head Professor David
Robie with the FALE Storyboard Award winner for best regional
reporting, ‘Ana Uili. David and his wife, Del, donated this West Sepik storyboard for the awards. Photo: Lowen Sei/USP
Professor David Robie's speech at the University of the South Pacific 21st Anniversary Journalism Awards on 30 October 2015:
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.
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.
Dr Ian Weber ... out the USP
"revolving door".
Photo: Jay Folio blog
And now Australia-based Dr Ian Weber, a colleague of his predecessor, has shot out the “revolving door”, as Fijileaks put it. He apparently resigned the same week as the journalism classes were supposed to start for the year.
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.
Torture of the captured Fiji fugitive being filmed on mobile phones.
Photo: Pacific Media Watch/Freeze frame from video
A MULTIMEDIA news report series about the torture of a fugitive prisoner and his suspected accomplice by Fiji prison officers has won a Pacific Media Watch editor a coveted international prize in trauma journalism.
Daniel Drageset, a Norwegian journalist interned at the Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre and a postgraduate student in the School of Communication Studies, won the Dart Asia-Pacific Centre for Journalism and Trauma Prize for reporting on violence, disaster or trauma in society at the 2013 Ossie Awards for student journalism in Mooloolaba, Queensland, this week.
Drageset has been contributing editor of the PMC’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project for the past year, and has also been a student intern editor on the associated independent Pacific Scoop news website.
Judge Cait McMahon, director of Melbourne's Dart Asia-Pacific Centre, said Drageset’s winning Fiji entry had showed an “impressive investigation into alleged police torture”.
“Daniel had to straddle important ethical issues and clarify potential bias of sources to produce an impressive piece of reporting,” she said.
AUT Pacific Media Centre's Karen Abplanalp has won a rare double award for her article on New Zealand investment in a controversial gold and copper mine in Indonesian-ruled West Papua at the annual Ossies for student journalism in Australia.
She has won both the Sally A. White Prize for Investigative Journalism and Best Feature (Print) Award.
Her article, "Blood Money", developed out of an assignment in her postgraduate Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University in New Zealand, was published as the lead feature in Metro magazine last December.
Abplanalp investigated the $1.3 million New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZSF) "ethical" investment in the US-owned Freeport McMoRan mine at Grasberg in southern West Papua region, which has been at the heart of human rights allegations for several years.
Late last year, a strike at the mine led to several killings by security forces.
Judge Sharon Mascall-Dare in the Journalism Education Association of Australia (JEAA) Ossie awards investigative journalism category said: "Karen Abplanalp's investigation into human rights abuses at a copper and gold mine in West Papua is an outstanding piece of journalism.
"Her methodology is robust; her presentation compelling. Her work was responsible for a national debate that, ultimately, persuaded the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to end its investment in the mine: her work held the fund's "ethical" investment policies to account.
'Blood Money'
"Blood Money is exemplary in demonstrating investigative journalism as a medium for change, in the public interest."
In the Best Feature (Print) category, judge Max Anderson, editor of Adelaide Hills Magazine, said Abplanalp’s article "demonstrates investigative savvy and a command of the feature writer’s art.
"Incredibly assured and perfectly metered, it allows the facts and interviewees to do the hard lifting without confounding narrative or surrendering pace. Any editor serving educated readers would be delighted to receive it."
The PMC's Alex Perrottet also won a highly commended award in the Best Use of Convergent Media for "Not eccentric at all", a combined slideshow, audio interview and text report providing an intimate glimpse of the life of KingGeorge Tupou V of Tonga before he died in March. This was published on Pacific Scoop website and posted on YouTube.
Judge Chris Campbell, director of Our World Today, said: "Engaging and personal choice of story - great interview."
Perrottet has been the PMC's Pacific Media Watch media freedom project editor for the past two years.
The winner in this category was Monash University's "highly professional" Dangerous Grounds investigative website probing environmental hazards and policies in the state of Victoria.
Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie praised the centre's students for their contribution to investigative work.
"It demonstrates the value of investigative research journalism when universities support their independent role," he said.
"Karen Abplanalp's article was recently republished as an example of research journalism in Pacific Journalism Review."
The Best Publication category in the Ossies was won by the University of the South Pacific's Wansolwara newspaper.
"This entry stood out because the journalists produced highly relevant and interesting stories in the public interest," said judge Paul Starick, head of news of Advertiser Newspapers in Adelaide.
"The front-page expose on the rigging of the Miss World Fiji beauty pageant was a great example of investigative journalism, both in the research and writing."
This report also won the Best News Story category.
"Not only did the stories in this publication stand out from the crowd, the journalists worked under trying circumstances. Wansolwara [had been] subject to censorship under martial law. Yet it campaigned for press freedom in numerous articles - surely something that must test the courage of any journalist."
Stop press: David Robie is the only JEA journalist and media academic whose students have won the best publication award at three different universities for three separate publications: Uni Tavur (University of PNG, 1995), Wansolwara (University of the South Pacific, 2000), and Te Waha Nui (AUT University, 2005)
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:
By Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Alex Perrottetin 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
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.
