By Andrea Malcolm
Journalists covering the South Pacific face new challenges, as tensions heighten, environmental issues take precedence and economic activity increases.
“A decade-long civil war on Bougainville, four coups in Fiji, ethnic conflict in Solomon Islands, factional feuding in Vanuatu and political assassinations in New Caledonia and Samoa are all part of the volatile mix,” says AUT University associate professor of communication studies Dr David Robie.
The newly established Pacific Media Centre at AUT University aims to better equip journalists for the challenges of reporting on the region.
PMC will also scrutinise how the news media is fulfilling this watchdog brief as well as provide resources for media in the region.
A new postgraduate paper in Asia-Pacific Journalism looks at the political economy of the media in the region and in selected countries such as Fiji, Indonesia an Tonga.
Guest lecturers have included Middle East reporter Jon Stephenson, Daniel Eaton of The Press, Scoop editor Selwyn Manning, TVNZ’s Barbara Dreaver and TV3’s Ingrid Leary.
The PMC is part of the new Creative Industries Research Institute (CIRI). It has embarked on a project designed to create a D-Space digital repository for a 10-year archive of media freedom reports and hopes to encourage research with scholarship assistance for doctoral and masters candidates and a journalist-in-residence.
Nine students are enrolled in the postgraduate Asia-Pacific Journalism course — four from New Zealand and five from Asia-Pacific.
- This article was first published in the winter 2007 edition of AUT Insight.
- More information at PMC: https://pmc.aut.ac.nz/
