By Anastasia Siniori
“K” Magazine, published by Kathimerini Publishing SA of Greece, ran a six-page article and interviews with Grace O’Sullivan and David Robie (including some of David’s images) marking publication of the memorial edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior.
Citizens of the politically turbulent states that are New Zealand’s neighbours deserve better news media. David McLoughlin talks to an old Pacific hand, David Robie.
By David McLoughlin
Trainee New Zealand journalists learn how to cover council meetings and not get sued for defamation. Their colleagues in the South Pacific learn how to cope with coups and having guns pointed at them.
Now the one-time Wellingtonian who devoted a decade to training South Pacific journalists in Fiji and Papua New Guinea thinks it’s time this country did something to foster the Fourth Estate in its backyard.
David Robie’s journalism career spans 40 years, beginning on The Dominion in Wellington in 1965, but despite stints in attractive places like Melbourne and Paris and hotspots like Kenya and apartheid-era South Africa, the South Pacific became his specialty.
From 1986 to 1993, he ran a South Pacific regional news service based in Auckland before shifting to Port Moresby to become a journalism lecturer at the University of Papua New Guinea. In 1998, he moved to Suva in Fiji as journalism coordinator at the University of the South Pacific.
Four years later, he took a position as senior lecturer in journalism at Auckland University of Technology, where he has continued as an ardent advocate of Pacific journalism, writing a book on its pedagogy, politics and perils. Mekim Nius (Making News), launched late last month.
“Journalists in the South Pacific face a lot more risks than in New Zealand or Australia,” he says. “Here we are concerned with defamation, but in the Pacific, you face the risk of personal threats and assaults.
“One of my first students in Papua New Guinea was held up at gunpoint by a soldier because she exposed corruption in the military. At USP, we taught about dealing with sedition and treason.”
Unfriendly environments
Dr Robie says that what happens in the South Pacific is important and often affects New Zealand, but this country does little or nothing to help train the journalists who have to work in often unfriendly environments.
“We should be more involved, because the South Pacific has been a volatile area for a long time. The media is vital in strengthening democracy in the region.”
He cites the 10-year war in Bougainville, the three coups in Fiji, the long unrest in the Solomon Islands.
“At this moment, there are rumours of another coup in Fiji and about what will happen when Labour wins the next election there, as I’m sure it will.”
The picture he paints is of opportunities lost by New Zealand to Australia, which contributes extensively to journalism training in the region, but not of the kind that would produce the most benefit.
Ausaid, the Australian government aid agency, has allocated millions of dollars since 1996 for media training in the region.
“And so it dominates the region. Ausaid pays quite a lot for short-course journalism training, but it’s a band-aid approach with minimal training. Australia’s aid is designed to be influential for Australia. New Zealand aid programmes don’t try to seek direct influence and favours the same way.”
Support quickly waned
That was not always the case. In 1975, New Zealand helped found the University of PNG journalism school, where Dr Robie worked, but though New Zealand interest in economic development aid to the region has grown, its support for training journalists quickly waned.
Dr Robie notes the irony that few New Zealand journalists had any university training in 1975. Most learned on the job after starting fresh from school.
A second PNG journalism school was established at the Catholic Divine Word University in 1982 and, in 1987, a journalism school was founded at the USP in Suva. But funding has always been problematic and most journalists across the region never get to them, continuing the “learn on the job” tradition.
“In the South Pacific, the school system in most countries does not educate young people to question authority, so it is very important for journalists to get training in that. Outside PNG, journalists mostly go straight into the job with little knowledge of how things work. So you get some quite slapdash standards, and journalists who are wary of taking on authority.”
The lack of training and a tradition of not questioning authority resulted in mixed messages from the Fiji media during the attempted coup fronted by George Speight in May 2000.
Dr Robie says some Fiji journalists (including those in his journalism classes at the time) turned out sterling work, but others simply assumed that the elected government had been overthrown and accepted the coup as a fait accompli.
Some journalists even camped with Speight at the commandeered Parliament.
Poorly paid
As well as lack of training, South Pacific journalists are poorly paid. In Fiji, which has one of the strongest economies and highest pay in the region, a newly trained graduate nurse begins at F$14,000 (NZ$11,700) but a journalist begins on F$6500.
“What I found teaching there was that you get bright young people who will work as journalists for a year or so but leave for jobs with much better pay using the double major degrees they got to get into journalism. It means there is a revolving door with a continual loss of staff and makes it very difficult to get stable editorial standards and policies.”
Though there are many capable, talented and courageous journalists in the region, the poor pay undermines the independence and integrity of the Fourth Estate.
“It means that journalists are potentially more readily tempted by ‘envelope’ journalism — bribery and other inducements by unscrupulous politicians and other powerful figures.
“There have been cases of this reported in Papua New Guinea and elsewhere in the region. And it may well be worse than is generally believed. Financial hardships and lack of training are an unhealthy mix for media in a democracy.”
Media owners say the pay is poor because they cannot afford anything else. Dr Robie says this might be so in smaller countries, but not in Fiji and PNG, which have some big media companies, including subsidiaries of foreign multinationals. For example, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp owns Port Moresby daily Post-Courier and The Fiji Times in Suva.
‘Journalist in residence’
He would like to see New Zealand offer scholarships for Pacific journalists to come here to work as interns with our media, and establish a programme like having a New Zealand “journalist in residence’ at the University of the South Pacific.
It isn’t something he has raised formally, but he has discussed it informally with Foreign Affairs officials. His book floats the idea, and he hopes something comes of it.
Dr Robie also believes New Zealand media could offer much better coverage of South Pacific news and issues. Despite our links with many Pacific countries and our geographical nearness, he describes news coverage as sparse.
“Some things going on in the Pacific right now will have an enormous impact on the region, such as the current upheaval in French Polynesia with [veteran President] Gaston Flosse being ousted after two decades by anti-nuclear campaigner Oscar Temaru. But it’s got barely any coverage here.”
By David Robie
The news media is the watchdog of democracy. But in the South Pacific today the Fourth Estate role is under threat from governments seeking statutory regulation, diminished media credibility, dilemmas over ethics and uncertainty over professionalism and training.
Traditionally-with the exception of Papua New Guinea where university education has been the norm — the region’s journalists have mostly learned on the job in the newsroom or through vocational short courses funded by foreign donors.
However, today’s Pacific journalists now more than ever need an education to contend with the complex cultural, development, environmental historical, legal, political and sociological challenges faced in an era of globalisation.
From the establishment of the region’s first journalism school at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1975 with New Zealand aid, Mekim Nius traces three decades of South Pacific media education history.
Dr David Robie profiles journalism at UPNG, Divine Word University and the University of the South Pacific in Fiji with Australian, Commonwealth, French, NZ and UNESCO aid. He also examines the impact of the region’s politics on the media in the two major economies, Fiji and Papua NewGuinea — from the Bougainville conflict and Sandline mercenary crisis to Fiji’s coups.
The book draws on interviews, research, two news industry surveys, and the author’s personal experience as a Pacific media educator for almost a decade. Mekim Nius argues journalists need to be provided with critical studies, ethical and contextual knowledge matching technical skills to be effective communicators and political mediators with the Pacific’s “new regionalism”. — From the Back Cover
By Angeline Lal in Suva
It was an occasion to remember for three University of the South Pacific students and their former lecturer when they graduated together during Friday’s ceremony in Suva.
Professor Robie received a doctorate in history/politics while three of his former students — Akka Rimon, Lauren Robinson and Kaveeta Chand — all received a bachelor’s degree majoring in journalism.
Dr Robie, 59, now a senior academic with Auckland University of Technology’s School of Communication Studies, said it was a relief to have completed his doctorate since he faced many hardships trying to balance full-on journalism academic work and study, especially in the middle of a coup.
He dedicated his achievement to his wife, Del Abcede, who was at the graduation.
“This achievement is for my wife who has always supported me and encouraged me at difficult times to work on completing my thesis,” he said. He also thanked his parents, Jim and Jean Robie, and sisters Pauline and Claire for their support.
The USP’s journalism coordinator for six years, Dr Robie said that it was a great honour for him to complete his PhD at USP since his thesis was on Pacific media.
Based as a journalist in the South Pacific for 20 years, he taught at the University of Papua New Guinea prior to joining USP.
George Speight coup
“It’s been hard trying to do a thesis and working at the same time, especially in 2000 during the George Speight coup,” said Dr Robie.
Of the 10 prizes and highly commended citations won by the USP journalism programme at the Journalism Education Association (of Australasia) — Ossie Awards — during Dr Robie’s time, one was the coveted Dr Charles Stuart award for their 2000 coup coverage.
One of the students, Robinson, now working for Fiji Television, graduated with a BA in journalism and community psychology.
“No more assignment and exams. I’m just looking forward to pursuing a career in journalism and the things I am interested in like production work.”
Robinson won the journalism programme’s best editor/news director award in 2003.
She dedicated her achievement to her parents for the “late night pick-ups and for providing everything that I needed for school.”
Her parents, who were present at the graduation, were visibly moved.
Her father was proud that Lauren’s achievements had surpassed his own. “I attribute Lauren’s success to God,” he said.
Rimon flew in from Kiribati for the graduation. “It was hard coping with he assignments and meeting deadlines, but it was worth the demands.”
Rimon dedicated her success to her late father. She works for the Kiribati government. She won the programme’s best graduating student award in 2023.
Republished from USP’s Wansolwara Online website.
By David Robie
University education for South Pacific journalists is a relatively recent development. It has existed in Papua New Guinea for merely a generation; it is less than a decade old at degree level in Fiji, and in the former colonies in Polynesia. At the same time, mean age, experience and educational qualifications have been rising among journalists in the major Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) member countries, Australia and New Zealand, as the news media has become more professionalised.
While the Papua New Guinea media has largely depended on journalism education to provide the foundation for its professionalism, Fiji has focused on a system of ad hoc short course training funded by international donors. This thesis examines the history of South Pacific university media education and its impact on the region’s journalism. Its first objective is to test the hypothesis that tertiary education has a critical influence on how Pacific journalists practise their profession and perceive their political and social role in a developing society faced with the challenges of globalisation.
Secondly, the thesis aims to analyse the political, economic and legal frameworks in which the media have operated in Papua New Guinea and Fiji since independence. Third, the thesis aims to explain and assess in detail the development of journalism education in the South Pacific since independence.
The theoretical framework is from a critical political economy perspective. It also assesses whether the concept of development journalism, which had its roots in the 1980s debate calling for a ‘New International Information and Communication Order’ (NWICO), has had an influence on a Pacific style of journalism.
The thesis argues within a context where journalists can be considered to be professionals with some degree of autonomy within the confines set by a capitalist and often transnational-owned media, and within those established by governments and media companies.
Journalists are not solely ‘governed’ by these confines; they still have some freedom to act, and journalism education can deliver some of the resources to make the most of that freedom.
The thesis includes historical case studies of the region’s three main journalism schools, Divine Word University (PNG), University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific. It demonstrates some of the dilemmas faced by the three schools, student journalists and graduates while exercising media freedom.
Research was conducted using the triangulation method, incorporating in-depth interviews with 57 editors, media managers, journalists and policy makers; two newsroom staff surveys of 15 news organisations in Fiji and Papua New Guinea in 1998/9 (124 journalists) and 2001 (106); and library and archives study. It also draws on the author’s personal experience as coordinator of the UPNG (1993-1997) and USP (1998-2002) journalism programmes for more than nine years.
The thesis concludes that journalists in Papua New Guinea (where university education has played a vital role for a generation) are more highly educated, have a higher mean experience and age, and a more critically sophisticated perception of themselves and their media role in Pacific societies than in Fiji (where almost half the journalists have no formal tertiary education or training).
Journalists in Fiji are also more influenced by race, cultural and religious factors. Conversely, PNG journalists are poorly paid even when compared with their Fiji colleagues. There are serious questions about the impact that this may have on the autonomy of journalists and the Fourth Estate role of news media in a South Pacific democracy.
Thesis sequel, Robie, D. (2004). Mekim Nius: South Pacific Media, Politics and Education. Published by The University of the South Pacific Book Centre, Suva, Fiji. Open access available here.
Retrieved from USP (only Vol 1 available digitally, Vol 2 in Pacific Collection): http://pimrisregional.library.usp.ac.fj/gsdl/collect/usplibr1/index/assoc/HASH0179.dir/doc.pdf
Retrieved from Auckland Public Library (Pacific Collection, 2 vols).
Retrieved from AUT University (2 vols): http://hdl.handle.net/10292/4557
Retrieved from CORE – Aggregating the world’s open access research: core.ac.uk
Many Pacific Islands neophyte journalists face a baptism of fire. It often takes raw courage to be a journalist in the Pacific. DAVID ROBIE writes about media issues after recently ending a decade of journalism education in the region.
Barely two years ago masked Fijian gunmen seized a consignment of books from the United States bound for the University of the South Pacific journalism programme in Suva. The small cardboard box was stashed in a courier mail van hijacked by coup front man George Speight’s supporters hoping to find hard cash.
Two months later the carton was recovered by police from the ransacked Parliament and handed over to me; torn open but contents intact. Ironically, inside were six copies of Betty Medsger’s Winds of Change: Challenges Confronting Journalism Education.
This was a poignant reminder of the realities facing Pacific media. Politics in the region are increasingly being determined by terrorism, particularly in Melanesia; such as in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
And with this development comes a greater demand on the region’s media and journalists for more training and professionalism. Most journalists are young, relatively inexperienced and lowly paid.
Since Speight’s illegal seizure of Parliament on 19 May 2000, politics in Fiji has remained under the spectre of terrorism. While the Speight upheaval cost a relatively modest 15 lives–all Fijian–the fear of it happening again, and next time being even bloodier, is still a concern.
Fiji’s politics is driven by fear and a continuing threat to reinvoke terrorism if governments do not pursue a narrow particular direction, defined as ensuring “indigenous paramountcy”.
Fiji is already a country prone to having coups (three so far) and risks becoming consigned to a fate of economic, political, and legal instability; a “banana republic”. Respect for the law is rapidly diminishing.
Few people believe Speight will serve more than a token symbolic period of his life sentence for treason in “prison”; he is detained on the tropical isle of Nukulau off Suva, a former haven for local picnickers.
Ten of his co-conspirators who pleaded guilty to lesser charges were given minor jail sentences (none will serve more than three years), while two–leading journalist Jo Nata and chiefly politician Ratu Timoci Silatolu–have denied the treason charges and at the time of writing await trial.
The role of Nata — “I was just a public relations consultant”– is at the centre of crucial issues in Fiji over journalism ethics, integrity, and independence.
One of Fiji’s first journalism graduates (at an Australian university), Nata was formerly coordinator of the Fiji Journalism Institute, a training centre established by media industry people that eventually closed under a cloud in 1999 about accountability over donor agency funding.
Another Fijian journalist, Margaret Wise, sacked as chief-of-staff of The Fiji Times, has also recently been at the centre of debate over ethics and her paternity action against former coup leader and prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka.
Editorial headlines such as “Don’t shoot the messenger” highlight the hypocrisy in the Fiji media when defending perceived threats to media freedom. There is little debate about the quality of the media itself and whether the Pacific gets the critical journalism that it deserves.
Other countries such as Australia and New Zealand have “mediawatch” style programmes on television and radio, and columns in newspapers, that vigorously question the media. News programmes also regularly invite journalism school commentators for views as they are independent from commercial interests.
Such lively debate is healthy for improvements in the media. After all, the watchdog also watching to ensure it doesn’t become a lapdog.
Award-winning documentary maker Senator ‘Atu Emberson-Bain was incensed after Fiji Television refused to show her excellent documentary, In the Name of Growth, exposing the appalling exploitation of indigenous women workers by an indigenous owned Pafco (Pacific Fishing Company) tuna canning plant on Ovalau Island:
“So much for the free (television) media in this country — the debate always focuses on freedom from government interference.,” Dr Emberson-Bain said.
“What about freedom from the big (private sector) boys on the block with their vested interests?”
While Fiji TV turned down her programme on spurious grounds, SBS TV broadcast it in Australia and bought exclusive broadcast rights for four years. It was also nominated in the best documentary category at the 21st Annual Hawai’i International Film Festival.
After more than two and a half decades reporting and teaching journalism in the region, at times involving controversy, my most nerve wracking time was perhaps being twice arrested in New Caledonia during 1987 by French military forces, once at gunpoint near the east coast village of Canala. At the time I was covering the militarisation of indigenous Kanak villages in an attempt to suppress the struggle for independence.
One of the problems was my book on the 1985 Rainbow Warrior bombing, Eyes of Fire, which was not popular with French colonial authorities.
The Fiji crisis highlighted many dilemmas about culture and conflict. Customary obligations can be a burden on journalists.
“Under pressure they can succumb to the demands of traditional loyalties,” argues former Fiji Daily Post editor Jale Moala. Writing about the Speight putsch in my book The Pacific Journalist, he said:
“The problem that arose here was not so much one of reporters taking sides, as it may have seemed at the time, but the inability of many reporters to function objectively under the pressures of the crisis. A lack of leadership in newsrooms was one reason.”
According to Agence France-Presse correspondent Michael Field — who has had the biggest share of bannings of any journalist in the Pacific, having being shut out of Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga, and even Fiji at one stage — the region has been going through something of an unprecedented crackdown against journalists.
Student journalists have also faced victimisation over their reporting. Many incidents involving threats and attempted gaggings have impacted on USP student journalists working on their newspaper Wansolwara.
But the “shooting the messenger” syndrome always had more serious consequences in Papua New Guinea. Two University of PNG reporters on Uni Tavur gave testimony last year before a commission of inquiry examining the causes of the shooting to death of four young Papua New Guineans during the protests against structural adjustment.
While I was at UPNG, two senior Uni Tavur reporters were beaten up one night because of their front page report on a political dispute between two national student politics leaders, both from the province of Enga.
On another occasion, drunken off-duty officers attacked a group of Uni Tavur students and me inside a police barracks. One student journalist was forced to go into hiding after he reported a funding scandal involving the then Miss UPNG.
Rarely do Australian or New Zealand journalism schools encounter this degree of “direct action” over stories. For many Pacific Islands neophyte journalists, it is a baptism of fire.
Not only does truth hurt, it can sometimes lead to a brutal act of retribution. It often takes raw courage to be a journalist in the Pacific.
Originally published in Pacific Weekly Review, September 30-October 6 edition.
By Mat Oakley, of Pacnews
During his time at the University of the South Pacific, Journalism Coordinator David Robie endured numerous attacks from some senior sections of the Fiji press and one Pacific media organisation — PINA. What was behind it and why were they so intent on getting rid of him? Just before Robie left Fiji after five years last Friday [June 2002], he told his side of the story and why he believes personal agendas are corrupting media in the Pacific.
David Robie, the University of the South Pacific’s former journalism coordinator, left Fiji last week after five controversial years.
It’s the end of an era of sorts for Pacific journalism education, an often stormy era in which Robie has been both praised and vilified for his efforts.
The bare facts would appear to speak for themselves. For much of the time, Robie has been running the entire programme alone, away from his family in New Zealand, designing the course, teaching the course, supervising the students’ newspaper Wansolwara, operating websites, and — as USP Vice Chancellor Savenaca Siwatibau said — “living in his office”.
In between holding the programme together, he sat on committees overseeing media training in the Pacific, published books and articles and lobbied the university, eventually successfully, for funding to expand the programme.
Under his guidance, the student newspaper and website won 10 awards or citations in the regional Journalism Education Association’s annual Ossie awards.
Robie says his work at USP has helped produce a cadre of journalists with a broad, and most importantly ethical, grounding in journalism across multiple media disciplines, something that, with the exception of Papua New Guinea, he says was previously lacking in the Pacific.
“In the region, mostly journalists have had minimal training and usually short-course training if they’re lucky — many of them have not really had much training at all.”
55 graduates from USP
USP has produced 55 graduates from its journalism programme since its inception in 1994 — 49 of them under Robie’s tutelage. Two-thirds of those graduates are now working in the media industry itself, Robie says, and most of the others are in media-related jobs with NGOs and other organisations.
Robie heads to New Zealand’s Auckland University of Technology leaving the USP programme in much better health than he found it — though perhaps the legacy of routine 16-hour days and seven-day weeks has not been so kind to his personal health. The university has just agreed to start work on a new F$250,000 building for the journalism school to replace the current “ad hoc” facilities. There are also two new full-time lecturers.
Vice-Chancellor Savenaca Siwatibau told the student newspaper Wansolwara this month that “the beginning of the programme and the funding were on shaky grounds. It was David who ran with it and now, of course, it’s working. We need to thank David for that”.
Even though the programme is working, there is no doubt it has suffered to an extent from being, for the most part, a one-man show. Robie is not Superman and some students say certain modules of the course were under-taught. Until now, attempts by USP to find colleagues for Robie have been short-lived. One student has put this down to personality clashes between lecturers, though Robie dismisses the suggestion.
But Robie sees the new building as a vote of confidence in his work and he seems to have repaid the confidence USP showed in him in the face of sustained attacks from specific quarters of Fiji-based media.
The latest attack came just last week in a story marking Robie’s departure broadcast on Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat programme. In an interview with reporter James Panichi, Robert Keith-Reid, publisher of Pacific with Islands Business magazine, delivered a bitter assault on Robie. The attack was largely personal and Keith-Reid did not offer any specific criticisms of Robie’s work. But he did complain that before Robie came along, his company had enjoyed a good relationship with the USP programme.
That might seem strange, since there had only been six graduates out of USP Journalism before Robie arrived, but Robie himself said he was not entirely surprised by the tone of Keith-Reid’s comments.
‘Enemies’ and no secret
It’s been no secret in Pacific media circles that Keith-Reid and other senior Islands Business staff, current and former, have been enemies of Robie since 1988, when Robie resigned as an Islands Business correspondent after Keith-Reid and editor Peter Lomas published an attack on him by New Caledonian right-winger David Los, who objected to Robie’s perceived sympathy for the Kanak independence movement.
To Robie’s dismay, Islands Business offered him no right of reply, and Robie’s lawyer forced the magazine to publish an apology in the following issue. Islands Business then hired Los, a teacher with no experience in journalism, as a correspondent, which dismayed Robie enough for him to resign and join rival magazine Pacific Islands Monthly.
Robie then published a story criticising the personal agendas he believed were controlling regional Pacific media. Islands Business was apparently deeply stung, as it reprinted the entire article in breach of copyright and ran three separate opinion pieces — from Keith-Reid, Los and Lomas — devoted to rubbishing Robie. The entire exercise took up five pages. Pacific Islands Monthly labelled it “an embarrassing reflection on the state of Pacific media” and even former Islands Business editor John Richardson slammed it.
Robie launched a F$135,000 defamation suit. Indeed, what would appear to be a fierce vendetta against Robie on the part of Islands Business and the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) — which shared staff and still share the same central Suva building — has made Robie’s tenure at USP much harder than it needed to be.
Robie was not allowed to come quietly. In late 1997, the Daily Post published a series of articles expressing alarm that USP was considering hiring Robie. In a turn of phrase implying a certain remoteness between the Post and PINA, the newspaper said PINA was “understood to support” another candidate, Sarita Singh, who had impressive qualifications but no experience running a university course.
The newspaper published lengthy devotions to Singh’s CV, but offered only a clipped appraisal of Robie’s achievements, which include three decades of work as journalist in the Pacific, Europe, Africa and Australia/New Zealand, plus a five-year stint running the journalism programme at the University of Papua New Guinea.
The articles painted Robie as a left-wing troublemaker opposed to the Rabuka government.
Articles from PINA
One senior Daily Post staff member at the time has since told Robie the articles arrived through the newspaper’s fax machine on PINA letterhead! Editor of the Post at the time was Laisa Taga, who a few months later joined Islands Business. She was also treasurer of PINA.
Peter Lomas, who Robie believes is the orchestrator of the attacks on him, worked for both Islands Business and PINA.
USP refused to be bullied and went ahead with the appointments, but the Rabuka government nevertheless delayed issuing the work permits for both Robie and fellow appointee Ingrid Leary, also a New Zealand journalist, leading the Journalism Students Association to deliver a petition to Rabuka saying: “As students we are gravely concerned that the university’s academic independence appears to be compromised by outside influences”.
Though Robie eventually got his work permit, those “outside influences” apparently refused to give up. Later that year, the Fiji Times reported that the government was investigating “complaints” that Robie was breaching his work permit by publishing articles outside USP. It was referring to his website Café Pacific, which Robie had set up as an educational project at the University of Technology in Sydney in 1996 and continued to run as a hobby.
SVT senator Filipe Bole even raised the issue in the House and for a few weeks it was uncertain whether Robie and Leary’s work permits would be revoked.
USP vigorously defended the pair, saying outside publication was part of their job descriptions and neither lecturer was being paid for their extra-curricular work.
Reporters Sans Frontieres, the international media freedom organisation, protested strongly to Bole. The New Zealand Journalists Training Organisation fired off a letter. Pacific Media Watch and Tahiti Pacifique Magazine complained on Robie’s behalf.
Where’s ‘code of ethics’
Even Jone Davukula, former press secretary to Rabuka, wrote to the Daily Post saying “local journalists were involved in these complaints, which seem to be based mainly on these persons’ disagreement with either the views of David Robie or Ingrid Leary, or the fact that they have been lawfully employed by the USP.
“Where is the Fiji journalists’ much vaunted Code of Ethics?” he concluded.
Already, the Fiji Journalism Institute and Fiji TV had complained about the attempt on the part of the same media organisation to block Robie’s appointment.
Few within the industry seemed to be in any doubt over the real source of the campaign, even though Robie says his real enemies never came forward, preferring to work behind the scenes influencing others to attack him.
Phillip Cass, a former USP journalism lecturer from the UK, hinted at the curious source of the attacks in a letter to the Daily Post in February 1998 when he said: “That kind of antipathy towards us (Europeans) cannot be entirely because of the colour of our skin because, the last time I saw that critic, he was a great deal whiter than I am.”
Ironically it was the Daily Post, now under the editorship of Jale Moala, which followed up with an editorial pointing a rather more direct finger at the alleged culprit.
“The saddest thing is the deafening silence from the Pacific Islands News Association and the Fiji Media Council. By failing to support the rights of journalists — whether they be teachers or students or whatever — these organisations are helping to destroy the very freedom of expression they have so often said they protect,” he wrote.
‘Nobody actually investigates’
Robie was even more direct on the subject.
“You only have one or two people like that, who are mischievous, who make these false statements, and everybody else laps it up. Nobody actually investigates.”
When contacted, Lomas would not comment, and referred all questions to current PINA president Johnson Honimae, of the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation, who was not in the post when the campaign against Robie was taking place.
PINA did release a response though, attributed to Honimae.
“PINA members have said it is critically important that qualified Pacific Islands trainers and educators get the opportunity to train and teach in their own region. That was PINA’s position on the appointment of Mr Robie and remains unchanged where Mr Robie’s successor is concerned.”
So what was the motive behind this campaign? The settling of old scores would not seem to account sufficiently for the venom of it, and Robie says PINA’s “jobs for qualified Pacific Islanders” mantra is not credible, considering that the PINA secretariat is run by Lomas, a New Zealander who has taken a Fiji passport, and his common law wife Nina Ratulele, who was hired as PINA Nius editor and administrator without any experience in journalism. Neither went through a transparent appointment process themselves, Robie says.
“Does it have something to do with attempts to corner the lion’s share of journalism education and training funds for the South Pacific? Independent university courses don’t fit comfortably with this grand scheme because they teach critical thinking as well as vocational skills,” Robie wrote on his Cafe Pacific website in September 1998 in response to attempts to get his work permit revoked.
In an interview a few days before his departure, Robie said he is still baffled by the sheer malevolence of his critics, who he said inhabit “a whirling cesspool of intrigue and backstabbing”, but believes their motives go beyond personal differences.
‘Fundamental mindset’
“I think there’s a fundamental mindset among people in key positions in the media — editorial executives, management people — that is 15 to 20 years behind the times. Many seem to think that the world hasn’t moved on and it’s surprising in many respects because some of the people who have that mindset come from countries that have made some major changes to their whole approach to journalism training and education — Australia and New Zealand, for example.
“But many in the most influential positions in the Pacific don’t seem to have caught up with that. And I think that’s because there’s been a pattern of donor funding in the region, which is a very cosy sort of arrangement. For 25 years that’s worked very well, but it’s also created a dependency mentality in the media.
“[The attacks] were the result of petty jealousies and a sort of territorial thing. Some of the people that are behind these attacks fit into this cosy network and someone like me has different ideas. It’s a very different approach than what these people are used to and I think they see it as a threat.”
That threat may stem partly, he believes, from the possibility that the USP course’s productivity throws a sharp light on a short course approach to training that he says is largely fruitless.
“There’s a lot of misrepresentation of our programme. We use methods that are used very widely overseas. We use problem-based learning. A lot of our work is very much based on projects and the outcomes of those projects. It’s very focused on practical outcomes and when you compare that to some of the short course training around the region, where there are no real outcomes and basically anyone just attends a course, we have a very structured system on assessing the progress and abilities of the people that go through our programme.”
Donor funds are being routinely wasted in the Pacific on short course training, Robie said, and his attackers were possibly afraid that the USP course posed a threat to the steady stream of donor money on which they rely.
PINA disagree.
Entry-level education
“PINA members also believe there is a place for both entry-level education and training and continuing training and education. PINA agrees that in some situations where short form training has been driven by outside interests and not driven by the needs of the Pacific it has been a waste … this is why PINA is seeking more of a say in determining trainers. It is also why PINA members feel strongly that more of this training should be conducted by trained Pacific Islands trainers,” PINA said in a statement.
Robie said this demand for “more of a say” amounts to political interference, and he is convinced PINA’s Suva bosses want a compliant face in the USP Journalism programme who will not pose a threat to the interests of its secretariat.
“There are many people who benefit from the short course gravy train and they’re quite happy for that system to carry on.
“I’ve been on one of these major training advisory groups for six years and I leave it thinking it has not made much of a contribution to the region.”
His critics are probably delighted that he has gone, but does that mean the ugly machinations will disappear? Sadly, probably not, for it seems that as long as there are personal fiefdoms to defend within the regional media — and donors willing to fund them — there will always be someone new to attack.
Published as a full page article in the Fiji Daily Post on 30 June 2002. Also distributed by Pacnews (Pacific Islands Broadcasting Association) news agency throughout the Pacific to radio stations and newspapers, 28 June 2002.
By David Robie
Hours after a mob attached Fiji Television and cut transmission for almost 48 hours, the University of the South Pacific pulled the plug on the website, fearing a similar raid on the sprawling Laucala campus.
Undaunted, the student journalists were offered an alternative site hosted by the Department of Social Communication and Journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney, and carried on unfazed.
Edited by David Robie
“Journalists, as arch-whistleblowers, are often viewed in the same light as trouble-makers who stir up situations unnecessarily. There are deep-rooted beliefs in South Pacific societies about respect for authority that can translate into a lack of accountability and transparency, coupled with a strongly disapproving attitude towards those who question, probe and publish. The Pacific is littered with instances of publishers and journalists being chastised and chased.” — The Pacific Journalist
Why do Pacific Islanders want to become journalists? In spite of often tense relationships between governments and the media in the region, and poor pay and working conditions, growing numbers of young Pacific Islanders are choosing a career in journalism — and usually seeking formal qualifications.
This book from the Journalism Programme, University of the South Pacific, looks at regional careers in the media. It covers some of the core courses of the programme, such as news values, basic news gathering, news writing and style, media law and ethics, print and online media, radio and television journalism, photojournalism, and political reporting and editorial balance.
The book is edited by USP’s journalism coordinator Dr David Robie, a New Zealand journalist with more than three decades of experience in the international and Pacific media. He has gathered a wide range of contributors, both journalists and media educators/trainers with long Pacific experience.
By Mark Pearson
The United States has its Pulitzer prizes. Australia has the Walkleys. And journalism education in the region has the Ossies, the Journalism Education Association’s awards recognising excellent journalism produced by students.
The JEA [now JERAA] is Australia-based and most of its members teach at the numerous journalism programs throughout the nation, although each year several students from New Zealand and the Pacific enter the awards.
The awards are named after journalist Osmar S White and are funded from his estate through the generosity of his daughter, journalist and author Sally A White.
Despite the overwhelming Australian membership of the JEA, the awards announced at the association’s annual conference on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast in December 2000 were dominated by entrants from the Pacific and New Zealand.
Journalism students from the University of the South Pacific under the leadership of course coordinator David Robie won two of the major awards and were highly commended in four others for their reporting of the 2000 Fiji coup.
Leading industry personnel judged the awards, and all praised the efforts of the University of the South Pacific students for their coverage of the coup.
Category judge deputy editor of The Age Online, Mike van Niekirk, said the student journalists working on the publication rose to the challenge of providing high quality reports of a dramatic international news event on their doorstep.
“They did so in challenging circumstances and by providing these reports on the internet they were one of the few sources of information at critical times of the events taking place,” he wrote in his judge’s comments.
“As such, the quality of the writing is of a high standard for students. Taken as a body of work it is very impressive.”
There are 12 categories in all.
News director at K Rock, Geelong, Rob McLennan, juged the best radio news story category, won by Michelle Fraser of the University of Queensland. Tamani Nair of the University of the South Pacific, who “handled a risky situation” with his coverage of the Fiji coup’s first day was highly commended.
Dr Mark Pearson, professor of journalism at Bond University, Queensland, writes a regular “Research and Education” column for the Panpa Bulletin (this publication changed its name to The Newspaper Works in 2012).
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