By Crispin C. Maslog, David Robie and Joel Adriano
We now live in the age of science and technology. In this age, the senior citizens among us walk around bewildered by these strange electronic gadgets and programs in the hands of the millennials—video games, computers, PSP games, phone apps, mobile phones, tablets, and many others.
As we move into this new age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we need to understand what is going on if we are to survive.
The mission of science communicators is clear. They must make all these science and scientific inventions understandable to the general public.
Science has many publics and the role of the science communicator—to reach these various publics—is a gargantuan task. This small book will try to address the huge issue of how to communicate science to Everyman.
Professor Crispin Maslog, the lead author: “Disaster reporting, which focuses on deaths and casualties for the benefit of local readers, is understandable. However, the mass media also need to explain in depth the causes of climate change. Contextual climate change reporting can be taught to journalists by journalism schools if they have enough trained faculty and resources. But Asia-Pacific journalism schools are not able to do this, to cite a paper we published in Pacific Journalism Review (2017), which was based on a small survey of 20 schools in the region…. There is a vacuum in formal science and environmental education in the Asia-Pacific region… But for the long-term, there is a need for a wide-scale, systematic upgrading of the science communication/science journalism training programmes in the universities with the help of UN agencies like UNESCO.”
Publisher: Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication (AIJC) in association with SciDev.Net and the Pacific Media Centre
Manila, Philippines, and Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, 105 pages
Tukuraki village landslide survivor Vilimaina Botitu tells her family’s story of death and survival. Image: Fiji's Tukuraki after the landslide video screenshot PMC
By David Robie
As critical issues such as climate change, exploited fisheries, declining human rights, and reconfiguration of political systems inherited at independence increasingly challenge the microstates of Asia-Pacific, approaches to news media and journalism education are also under strain.
University–based journalism education was introduced to the South Pacific in Papua New Guinea at independence in 1975 and in Fiji at the regional University of the South Pacific in 1987, while Technical Vocational Educational and Training institutions have been a more recent addition in the region.
Some scholars argue there is little difference between Pacific and Western approaches to journalism, or that some journalism schools are too focused on Western media education, while others assert there is a distinctive style of journalism in Oceania with cultural variations based on the country where it is practiced and parallels with some approaches in Asia such as “mindful journalism”.
This paper examines a “Pacific way” journalism debate which echoes a regional political concept coined by the late Fiji president, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.
The paper argues for a greater appreciation of the complexities of media cultures in Pacific nations and proposes a more nuanced, reflexive approach to journalism in the Pacific region.
This is reflected in a “talanoa journalism” model that is a more culturally appropriate benchmark than monocultural media templates.
Robie, D.(2019)Karoronga, kele’a, talanoa, tapoetethakot and va: expanding millennial notions of a ‘Pacific way’ journalism education and media research culture,Media Asia,46(1-2),1-17.
Professor David Robie has a passion for the Asia-Pacific region. A journalist for more than 40 years, David has reported on postcolonial coups, indigenous struggles for independence and environmental and developmental issues in the Asia-Pacific. He retired from AUT University in December 2020.
Professor David Robie (speaking) with Tonga's Kalafi Moala and Fiji's Stanley Simpson at the Nadi human rights media forum. Image: SPC
Human Rights and Social Development
A prominent journalist and founding director of Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre, Professor David Robie, has shared his experience of human rights coverage in the region as a media person.
He stressed the news media role as watchdogs at a Human Rights and Media Forum held in Nadi, Fiji, on 13–15 April 2016. Professor Robie was chief guest.
Senior journalists and government communication officers from 13 Pacific countries participated in the forum, which had the theme: Enhancing a human rights-based approach to news reporting.
“Human rights-oriented journalism is more focused on global rather than on selective reporting, with an emphasis on the vulnerable and empowerment for the affected and marginalised people — a voice for the voiceless,” Dr Robie said.
After the forum, he said in an interview: “Journalists ought to be human rights defenders and bear witness to Pacific human rights violations.
“This forum was remarkably successful in providing the tools for a wide range of Pacific media people to bring accountability to offenders against human rights.
“I congratulate the Pacific Community’s Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT) on organising this important forum.”
Vital media role
The forum, which was supported by the Australian government and European Union, released an outcomes document, reaffirming the vital role the media play in recognising the importance of strengthening news reporting, using a human rights-based approach.
The outcomes document also acknowledges the importance of building a strong relationship between government communication personnel and journalists in sharing information and the roles they play in disseminating information.
This document is being formatted into a poster for newsrooms in the region.
Romulo Nayacalevu, SPC’s Human Rights Adviser, said: “The media have a powerful voice in highlighting human rights issues and concerns, and this workshop provides the opportunity for journalists to dialogue on human rights and the media.
“SPC is delighted to work closely with the Pacific media to support their work in human rights reporting and we are excited about the outcomes document, which provides them with tips on how to do that.”
Giving a Pacific journalist’s perspective, Stanley Simpson, managing director of Business Melanesia Ltd, stressed that journalists in the region were frequently victims of human rights abuses while reporting on human rights in the region.
“Pacific journalists are often young and almost always broke, some have very little life experience, they are underpaid and overworked, they get threatened and intimidated regularly, and they endure a high pressure environment.
‘Instruments of change’
“People like to see journalists as instruments of change, but sometimes journalists just feel that they are being used by different sides with different agendas.
“So often they are going through the day-to-day slog of getting a newspaper or news bulletin out — it is easy to forget that they have the potential to influence change.
“It is important that this is addressed and journalists understand their roles as agents of change,” he said.
Belinda Kora, news director of Papua New Guinea FM, agreed that journalists could influence change but their reporting must be responsible.
“I keep reminding my reporters that when it comes to reporting about human rights, if your story does not impact on the lives of victims or anyone else for that matter, you are only taking up space,” Kora said.
She added that, importantly, journalists needed to know their rights to be able to report responsibly.
“How can we journalists in the region report effectively if we don’t know our rights?” Kora asked.
Pacific aspirations
The three-day forum strengthened media capacity in rights-based reporting to reflect the aspirations of Pacific Island communities for equality, development and social justice, said RRRT team leader Nicol Cave.
Marian Kupu of Tonga’s Broadcom Broadcasting Limited said: “I found the three-day forum very encouraging because I learnt about my country’s human rights commitments and I see my role as a journalist to report on the gaps in order to encourage decision makers to prioritise and address the issues.”
“Giving voice to the voiceless” and “championing the rights of all peoples” were key messages highlighted at the forum.
The forum was organised by the Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT) of the Pacific Community in partnership with the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (Pacmas), the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and the journalism programme of the University of the South Pacific.
For many of you millennials, you’re graduating and entering a Brave New World of Journalism . . .
Embarking on a professional journalism career that is changing technologies at the speed of light, and facing a future full of treacherous quicksands like never before.
When I started in journalism, as a fresh 18-year-old in 1964 it was the year after President Kennedy was assassinated and I naively thought my hopeful world had ended, Beatlemania was in overdrive and New Zealand had been sucked into the Vietnam War.
And my journalism career actually started four years before the University of the South Pacific was founded in 1968.
Being a journalist was much simpler back then — as a young cadet on the capital city Wellington’s Dominion daily newspaper, I found the choices were straight forward.
Did we want to be a print, radio or television journalist? The internet was unheard of then – it took a further 15 years before the rudimentary “network of networks” emerged, and then another seven before computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web and complicated journalism.
The first rule for interviewing, aspiring journalists were told in newsrooms — and also in a 1965 book called The Journalist’s Craft that I rediscovered on my bookshelves the other day — was to pick the right source. Rely on sources who were trustworthy and well-informed.
Second rule: ‘Get the truth’
This was long before Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post made “deep throat’ famous in their Watergate investigation in 1972.
The second rule was: make sure you get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but…
We were told that we really needed to get a sense of when a woman or a man is telling the truth.
This, of course, fed into the third rule, which was: talk to the interviewee face to face.
Drummed into us was accuracy, speed, fairness and balance. Many of my days were spent on the wharves of Wellington Harbour painstakingly taking the details of the shipping news, or reporting accidents.
The whole idea was accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. And what a drumming we experienced from a crusty news editor calling us out when we made the slightest mistake.
If we survived this grueling baptism of fire, then we were bumped up from a cadet to a real journalist.
Fewer risks to journalists
There were fewer risks to journalists in those days – a few nasty complaints here and there, lack of cooperation from the public, and a possible defamation case if we didn’t know our media law.
It wasn’t until I went to South Africa in 1970 — the then white-minority ruled country that jailed one of the great leaders of our times, Nelson Mandela — that I personally learned how risky it could be being a journalist.
Jailings, assaults and banning orders were commonplace. One of my colleagues, banned then exiled Peter Magubane, a brilliant photographer, was one of my earlier influences with his courage and dedication.
However, today the world is a very different place. It is basically really hostile against journalists in many countries and it continues to get worse.
Today assassinations, murders — especially the killing of those involved in investigating corruption — kidnappings, hostage taking are increasingly the norm.
And being targeted by vicious trolls, often with death threats, is a media fact of life these days.
In its 2018 World Press Freedom Index annual report, the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without borders (RSF), declared that journalists faced more hatred this year than last year, not only in authoritarian countries but also increasingly in countries with democratically elected leaders.
Unleashing of hatred
RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire said in a statement:
“The unleashing of hatred towards journalists is one of the worst threats to democracies.
“Political leaders who fuel loathing for reporters bear heavy responsibility because they undermine the concept of public debate based on facts instead of propaganda.
“To dispute the legitimacy of journalism today is to play with extremely dangerous political fire.”
Fifty seven journalists have been killed so far in 2018, plus 10 citizen journalists for a total of 67; 155 journalists have been imprisoned, with a further 142 citizen journalists jailed — a total of 297.
In July, it was my privilege to be in Paris for a strategic consultation of Asia-Pacific media freedom advocates in my capacity as Pacific Media Centre director and Pacific Media Watch freedom project convenor. Much of the blame for this “press hatred” was heaped at that summit on some of today’s political leaders.
We all know about US President Trump’s “media-phobia” and how he has graduated from branding mainstream media and much of what they publish or broadcast as “fake news” to declaring them “enemies of the people” — a term once used by Joseph Stalin.
#FIGHTFAKENEWS Video: Reporters Without Borders
Toying with ‘press hatred’
However, there are many leaders in so-called democracies with an even worse record of toying with “press hatred”.
Take for example, President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who is merely two years into his five-year term of office and he has unleashed a “war on drugs” killing machine that is alleged to have murdered between some 7,000 and 12,000 suspects — most of them extrajudicial killings.
A “mock bodies” student protest over the Philippines’ “war on drugs” extrajuducial killings. From the talk slides. Image: PMC
He was pictured in the media cradling a high-powered rifle and he admits that he started carrying a gun recently — not to protect himself because he has plenty of security guards, but to challenge a critical senator to a draw “Wild West” style.
Instead, he simply had the senator arrested on trumped up charges.
Duterte has frequently berated the media and spiced up his attacks with threats such as this chilling message he gave casually at a press conference:
“Just because you’re a journalist, you’re not exempted from assassination, if you are a son of a bitch. Free speech won’t save you.”
High Filipino death rate
The death rate among radio journalists, in particular those investigating corruption and human rights violations, has traditionally been high in the Philippines.
In the Czech Republic late last year, President Miloš Zeman staged a macabre media conference stunt. He angered the press when he brandished a dummy Kalashnikov AK47 with the words “for journalists” carved into the woodstock at the October press conference in Prague, and with a bottle of alcohol attached instead of an ammunition clip.
In Slovakia, then Prime Minister Robert Fico called journalists “filthy anti-Slovak prostitutes” and “idiotic hyenas”.
A Slovak reporter, Ján Kuciak, was shot dead in his home in February, just four months after another European journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia of Malta who was investigating corruption, was killed by a targeted car-bombing.
Last week, a 30-year-old Bulgarian investigative journalist, Viktoria Marinova, was murdered. Police said the television current affairs host investigating corruption had been raped, beaten and then strangled.
Most of the media killings are done with impunity.
The fate of exiled Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi. From the talk slides. Image: PMC
Outrage over Jamal Khashoggi And then the world has been outraged by the disappearance and shocking murder of respected Saudi Arabian journalist and editor Jamal Khashoggi by a state “hit squad” of 15 men inside his own country’s consulate in Istanbul. He went into the consulate on October 2 and never came out.
The exact circumstances of what happened are still unravelling daily, but a Turkish newspaper reports that the journalist’s smartwatch captured audio of his gruesome killing.
Covering the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi.Video: Al Jazeera’s Listening Post
Condemning the brutal act, United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, expressed fears that enforced media disappearances are set to become the “new normal”.
While such ghastly fates for journalists may seem remote here in the Pacific, we have plenty of attacks on media freedom to contend with in our own backyard. And trolls in the Pacific and state threats to internet freedom are rife.
The detention of Television New Zealand’s Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver for four hours by police in Nauru at last month’s Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Summit while attempting to interview refugees is just one example of such attempts to shut down truth-seeking.
Among the many protests, Amnesty International said:
“Whether it happens in Myanmar, Iran or right here in the Pacific, detaining journalists for doing their jobs is wrong. Freedom of the press is fundamental to a just society. Barbara Dreaver is a respected journalist with a long history of covering important stories across the Pacific.
“Amnesty International’s research on Nauru showed that the conditions for people who have been banished there by Australia amount to torture under international law. Children are self-harming and Googling how to kill themselves. That cannot be swept under the carpet and it won’t go away by enforcing draconian limits to media freedom.”
Pacific journalists persecuted
Journalists in the Pacific have frequently been persecuted by smallminded politicians with scant regard for the role of the media, such as led to the failed sedition case against The Fiji Times.
The media play a critical role in exposing abuses of power, such as Bryan Kramer’s The Kramer Report in exposing the 40 Maserati luxury car APEC scandal in Papua New Guinea last week.
Papua New Guinea’s Maserati luxury sedans scandal. Image from David Robie’s talk slides. Image: PMC
In this year’s World Media Freedom Day speech warning about the “creeping criminalisation” of journalism, the new UNESCO chair of journalism Professor Peter Greste at the University of Queensland, asked:
“If we appear to be heading into journalism’s long, dark night, when did the sun start to disappear? Although the statistics jump around a little, there appears to be a clear turning point: in 2003, when the numbers of journalists killed and imprisoned started to climb from the historic lows of the late ’90s, to the record levels of the present.
“Although coincidence is not the same as causation, it seems hard to escape the notion that the War on Terror that President George W. Bush launched after 9/11 had something to do with it.”
‘Journalism is not a crime’
Peter Greste himself, and his two colleagues paid a heavy price for their truth-seeking during the post Arab Spring upheaval in Egypt — being jailed for 400 days on trumped up terrorism charges for doing their job. His media organisation, Al Jazeera, and rival media groups teamed up to wage their global “Journalism is not a crime” campaign.
Now that I have done my best to talk you out of journalism by stressing the growing global dangers, I want to draw attention to some of the many reasons why journalism is critically important and why you should be congratulated for taking up this career.
Next month, Fiji is facing a critically important general election, the second since the return of democracy in your country in 2014. And many of you graduating journalists will be involved.
Governments in Fiji and the Pacific should remember journalists are guardians of democracy and they have an important role to play in ensuring the legitimacy of both the vote and the result, especially in a country such as this which has been emerging from many years of political crisis.
But it is important that journalists play their part too with responsibilities as well as rights. Along with the right to provide information without fear or favour, and free from pressure or threats, you have a duty to provide voters with accurate, objective and constructive information.
The University of the South Pacific has a proud record of journalism education in the region stretching back ironically to the year of the inaugural coups, in 1987. First there was a Certificate programme, founded by Dr Murray Masterton (who has sadly passed away) and later Diploma and Degree qualifications followed with a programme founded by François Turmel and Dr Philip Cass with French Embassy aid.
Dr Robie at USP at the start of the millennium. From the talk slides. Image: PMC
Looking back with pride
It is with pride that I can look back at my five years with USP bridging the start of the Millennium. Among high points were gaining my doctorate in history/politics at USP — the first journalism educator to do so in the Pacific — and launching these very Annual Journalism Awards, initially with the Storyboard and Tanoa awards and a host of sponsors.
When I look at the outstanding achievements in the years since then with current Journalism Coordinator Dr Shailendra Singh and his colleagues Eliki Drugunalevu and Geraldine Panapasa, it is with some pleasure.
And USP should be rightly delighted with one of the major success journalism programmes of the Asia-Pacific region.
Wansolwara newspaper, which celebrated two decades of publishing in 2016, has been a tremendous success. Not many journalism school publications have such sustained longevity and have won so many international awards.
Innovation has been the name of the game, such as this climate change joint digital storytelling project with E-Pop and France 24 media. At AUT we have been proud to be partners with USP with our own Bearing Witness and other projects stretching back for two decades.
Pacific whistleblowers
Finally, I would like pay tribute to two of the whistleblowers and journalists in the Pacific and who should inspire you in your journalism career.
Firstly, Iranian-born Behrouz Boochani, the refugee journalist, documentary maker and poet who pricked the Australian conscience about the terrible human rights violations against asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru.
He has reminded Canberra that Australia needs to regain a moral compass.
And activist lawyer communicator Joe Moses, who campaigned tirelessly for the rights of the villagers of Paga Hill in Port Moresby. These people were forced out of their homes in defiance of a Supreme Court order to make way for the luxury development for next month’s APEC summit.
Be inspired by them and the foundations of human rights journalism and contribute to your communities and countries. Don’t be seduced by a fast foods diet of distortion and propaganda.
Be courageous and committed, be true to your quest for the truth.
Keynote address by Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie at The University of the South Pacific Journalism Awards,19 October 2018, celebrating 50 years of the university’s existence. First published by the PMC here.
Papua New Guinea police in 2016 blockading the entrance to the University of Papua New
Guinea, where the award-winning Uni Tavur was published and where Asia Pacific Report has a network of correspondents.
Image: Uni Tavur
By David Robie
For 13 years (2007-2020), the Pacific Media Centre research and publication unit at Auckland University of Technology published journalism with an “activist” edge to its style of reportage raising issues of social justice in New Zealand’s regional backyard.
It achieved this through partnerships with progressive sections of news media and a non-profit model of critical and challenging assignments for postgraduate students in the context of coups, civil war, climate change, human rights, sustainable development and neo-colonialism.
An earlier Pacific Scoop venture (2009-2015) morphed into an innovative venture for the digital era, Asia Pacific Report (APR) (http://asiapacificreport.nz/), launched in January 2016. Amid the current global climate of controversy over ‘fake news’ and a ‘war on truth’ and declining credibility among some mainstream media, the APR project has demonstrated on many occasions the value of independent niche media questioning and challenging mainstream agendas.
In this article, a series of case studies examines how the collective experience of citizen journalism, digital engagement and an innovative public empowerment journalism course can develop a unique online publication. The article traverses some of the region’s thorny political and social issues — including the controversial police shootings of students in Papua New Guinea in June 2016.
Fiji news media . . . facing relentless pressures with the draconian Media Act in the background. Image: Islands Business/The Fiji Times
By Samisoni Pareti in Suva
With the trial of three newspaper executives underway in Fiji in May on charges of sedition, the assault of a newspaper journalist in Papua New Guinea, the removal of the general manager and her news manager at the Tonga Broadcasting Commission and the re-introduction of libel laws in Samoa, press freedom is coming under severe attacks in all regions of the Pacific.
A survey by Islands Business reveal disturbing signs to silence or control the work of independent and free media in the islands, with most of these attacks orchestrated by public agencies.
Equally alarming is the absence of a public outcry or condemnation from the media and the general public alike.
Long-time Pacific media commentator and journalist now director of the Auckland-based Pacific Media Centre and convenor of Pacific Media Watch, Professor David Robie believes media freedom in the Pacific has never been as under severe stress as it is today.
“Ironically, in this digital era of social media and with a multitude of alternative and independent information sources and platforms available, mainstream media has faced a decline in media freedom,” he told Islands Business.
Notably two of the Pacific countries with the largest and strongest media industries, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, have faced a steady “chilling” in their discourse.
Increasingly in PNG, for example, the public and journalists themselves are turning to independent and respected blogs for trusted and “real” information, he says.
“There is a mainstream media silence on many issues, especially the under-reporting of social justice issues, the plight of refugees after closure of the Manus detention centre, climate change, and West Papua.”
Samisoni Pareti is an Islands Business editor. Republished with permission.
Media freedom in Fiji . . . Professor david Robie says media freedom in the Pacific has never been under such severe stress as it is today. Image: The Fiji Times/Islands Business
By Samisoni Pareti in Suva
With the trial of three newspaper executives underway in Fiji in May on charges of sedition, the assault of a newspaper journalist in Papua New Guinea, the removal of the general manager and her news manager at the Tonga Broadcasting Commission and the re-introduction of libel laws in Samoa, press freedom is coming under severe attacks in all regions of the Pacific.
A survey by Islands Business reveals disturbing signs to silence or control the work of independent and free media in the islands, with most of these attacks orchestrated by public agencies. Equally alarming is the absence of a public outcry or condemnation from the media and the general public alike.
Long-time Pacific media commentator and journalist, now director of the Auckland-based Pacific Media Centre and convenor of Pacific Media Watch, Professor David Robie believes media freedom in the Pacific has never been under such severe stress as it is today.
“Ironically, in this digital era of social media and with a multitude of alternative and independent information sources and platforms available, mainstream media has faced a decline in media freedom,” he says.
“Notably two of the Pacific countries with the largest and strongest media industries,Fiji and Papua New Guinea, have faced a steady ‘chilling’ in their discourse. Increasingly in PNG, for example, the public and journalists themselves are turning to independent and respected blogs for trusted and ‘real’ information.
“There is a mainstream media silence on many issues, especially the under-reporting of social justice issues, the plight of refugees after closure of the Manus detention centre, climate change, and West Papua.”
Facebook has censored a West Papuan image by a Vanuatu-based photojournalist for the second time in less than four days — this time “within one minute” after the photograph was posted.
Last weekend, a two-page feature spread authored by him about a perceived threat to the region’s stability because of Indonesian political influence in the Melanesian Spearhead Group was published by the Vanuatu Daily Post under the headline “Caught in a pincer”.
The Facebook “censored” Ben Bohane image after a “facelift” by the Vanuatu Daily Post.
The article was subsequently republished in Asia Pacific Report on Monday under the headline “China? No, let’s face the elephant in the Pacific room”,
Facebook alerts on the Vanuatu Daily Post, Asia Pacific Report, Pacific Media Centre along with Ben Bohane and PMC director Professor David Robie’s newsfeeds were removed with blocks saying the featured image had “violated community standards”.
The Bohane image taken in 1995 showed an armed OPM (Free West Papua) guerilla and several other men wearing traditional nambas (protective sheaths).
The photo has previously appeared in The Black Islands and other outlets, and can be seen in a 2006 Bohane photoessay at Pacific Journalism Review.
Facebook ‘test’
Bohane today carried out a Facebook “test” by posting his OPM image again.
He told Pacific Media Watch that within one minute he was “notified that the content has been removed and I am now banned from posting anything on FB for 24 hours”.
Bohane wrote on his Facebook page:
“Facebook seems to be censoring West Papuan images of mine used in news stories, saying they don’t meet ‘Community Standards’ because of “nudity”.
“Either that or the Indonesian government is reporting the images to be removed because they don’t want Papuan resistance photos spread on the web.
“Memo to Facebook – this is how Papuans live! Your ‘Community Standards’ obviously don’t include Melanesian culture.
“I have sent FB messages to complain, as have some regional news media outlets, and am posting images here as a test to see if they will be removed again and the problem persists….”
