David Robie

South Pacific notions of the fourth estate: A collision of media models, culture and values

abstract South Pacific media is generally projected as embracing Western news values with the ideals of “objectivity” and “facticity” being paramount. In fact, while this may well be partially true of the Western-owned mainstream media in the two largest nations, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, the reality is far more complex. In many respects, Pacific media have more in common with other developing nations, such as in India, Indonesia and the Philippines. Some argue that unique forms of media language are evolving in the region, while others assert that a unique style of Pacific journalism is emerging. This paper discusses notions of Fourth Estate in the South Pacific and outlines and applies a “Four Worlds” news values model that contrasts with media in the dominant regional neighbour states, Australia and New Zealand. It also assesses the findings of two rounds of empirical research in the newsrooms of Fiji and Papua New Guinea (1998/9 and 2001). Finally, the paper argues for major changes to alter a mindset in the region among news organizations that have been reluctant to invest in human resource development or recognize the importance of education for media and democracy.

Coups, Conflicts and Human Rights: Pacific Media Paradigms and Challenges

The role of news media in the global South nations and declining credibility in some sectors of the developed world’s Fourth Estate pose challenges for the future of democracy in the Pacific region. Truth, censorship, ethics and corporate integrity are critical media issues in a region faced with coups, such as in Fiji (four in the past two decades) and attempted in Papua New Guinea (Sandline mercenary crisis in 1997), conflicts and rampant human rights violations, such as in West Papua. This commentary reflects on the challenges in the context of the political economy of the media and journalism education in the Asia-Pacific in 2012. The relevance to the region of emerging disciplines such as deliberative journalism, peace journalism, human rights journalism, and notions of critical development journalism are also discussed.

Diversity Reportage in Metropolitan Oceania: The Mantra and the Reality

Aotearoa/New Zealand has the largest Polynesian population in Oceania. Three Pacific microstates now have more than 70 per cent of their population living in New Zealand. Projected demographics by Statistics New Zealand indicate that the Pacific and indigenous Māori populations could grow by 59 and 29 per cent respectively by 2026. The Asian population will increase even more dramatically over that period, by almost doubling. Māori, Pasifika and ethnic media in New Zealand are also steadily expanding, with major implications for the ‘mainstream’ media industry and journalism educators. For more than two decades, diversity has been a growing mantra for the Aotearoa/New Zealand media. Initially, the concept of biculturalism — partnership with the indigenous tangata whenua— was pre-eminent in the debate but, as the nations Māori, Pasifika and ethnic media have flourished and matured, and demographics have rapidly changed, multiculturalism and multicultural media strategies have become increasingly important. This paper examines the regional trends in Oceania, the growth of the indigenous and ethnic media, and their impact on the mainstream in New Zealand as an outpost of globalised media. It also looks at the evolving initiatives to address the challenges.

EDITORIAL: Connecting the Pacific dots

When University of the South Pacific climate change scientist Elisabeth Holland gave a keynote address at the Second Pacific Climate Change Conference at Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, New Zealand, on February 2018, her message was simple but inspiring. In an address advocating ‘connecting the dots’ about the climate challenges facing the globe, and particularly the coral atoll microstates of the Asia-Pacific region, she called for ‘more Pacific research, by the Pacific and for the Pacific’. The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize co-recipient, Professor Holland, director of the University of the South Pacific’s Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD), noted many of the global models drawn from average statistics were not too helpful for the specifics in the Pacific where climate change had already become a daily reality.

Tanah Papua, Asia-Pacific news blind spots and citizen media: From the ‘Act of Free Choice’ betrayal to a social media revolution

For five decades Tanah Papua, or the West Papua half of the island of New Guinea on the intersection of Asia and the Pacific, has been a critical issue for the region with a majority of the Melanesian population supporting self-determination, and ultimately independence. While being prepared for eventual post-war independence by the Dutch colonial authorities, Indonesian paratroopers and marines invaded the territory in 1962 in an ill-fated military expedition dubbed Operation Trikora (‘People’s Triple Command’). However, this eventually led to the so-called Act of Free Choice in 1969 under the auspices of the United Nations in a sham referendum dubbed by critics as an ‘Act of No Choice’ which has been disputed ever since as a legal basis for Indonesian colonialism. A low-level insurgency waged by the OPM (Free West Papua Movement) has also continued and Jakarta maintains its control through the politics of oppression and internal migration. For more than five decades, the legacy media in New Zealand have largely ignored this issue on their doorstep, preferring to give attention to Fiji and a so-called coup culture instead. In the past five years, social media have contributed to a dramatic upsurge of global awareness about West Papua but still the New Zealand legacy media have failed to take heed. This article also briefly introduces other Asia-Pacific political issues—such as Kanaky, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinean university student unrest, the militarisation of the Mariana Islands and the Pacific’s Nuclear Zero lawsuit against the nine nuclear powers—ignored by a New Zealand media that has no serious tradition of independent foreign correspondence.

REVIEW: Timely strategic research spotlights killings of journalists

The Assault on Journalism: Building Knowledge to Protect Freedom of Expression , edited by Ulla Carlsson and Reeta Poyhtari . Gothenburg, Sweden: Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communication Research (Nordicom). 2017. 363 pages. ISBN 9789187957505 THE GHANAIAN investigative journalist summed up the mood among some 1500 media people with the beaded face veil rather well—a facial security screen symbolising both the safety of the reporter and his sources. But this was no empty gesture. It is characteristic of Anas Aremeyaw Anas who has captured judges on tape allegedly taking bribes. As the result of his celebrated documentary, Ghana in the Eyes of God: Epic of Injustice , more than 30 judges and 170 judicial officers were implicated in Ghana’s biggest corruption scandal.

REVIEW: Drone killings on a par with mafia hitmen

We Kill Because We Can: From Soldiering to Assassination in the Drone Age , by Laurie Calhoun. London: Zed Books. 2016. 400pp. ISBN 978-1-78360-547-7 pbk.

Editorial: Ruthless tidal wave

THIS edition of Pacific Journalism Review began with a theme around ‘Endangered Journalists’. However, by the time it was into full editorial production it was clear that this was also about the global silence and injustice imposed on West Papua and the ‘endangered’ indigenous people in this mountainous land on the cusp of Asia and the Pacific. While the edition layout was being prepared, remarkable events were happening in West Papua and elsewhere in Indonesia this year around the historically significant anniversary date of 1 May 2016 – fifty-three years after a United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA) handed power over the former Dutch colony in West New Guinea to Jakarta with a mandate to rule until such time as the Papuan people decided on their future in a free vote.

From Pacific Scoop to Asia Pacific Report: A case study in an independent campus-industry media partnership

Media convergence within the news and current affairs landscape over the past two decades has opened opportunities for competing newspapers, television stations and online publishers to form alliances to approach digital and editorial challenges with innovative strategies. The partnerships have often enabled journalists to embrace multimedia platforms with flexibility and initiative. This has fostered a trend in ‘gatewatching’ and a citizen responsive and involved grassroots media rather than legacy mainstream gatekeeping, top-down models. Such committed media attempts in search of investigative journalism accompanied by ‘public’ and ‘civic’ journalism engagement initiatives have also been emulated by some journalism schools in the Asia-Pacific region. This has paralleled the evolution of journalism as a research methodology with academic application over the past decade. Selecting two New Zealand-based complementary and pioneering Pacific digital news and analysis publications, Pacific Scoop (founded 2009) and Asia-Pacific Report (2016), produced by a journalism school programme in partnership with established independent media as a combined case study, this article will demonstrate how academia-based gatewatching media can effectively challenge mainstream gatekeeping media. Pacific Scoop was established by an Auckland university in partnership with New Zealand’s largest independent publisher, Scoop Media Limited, and launched at the M ā ori Expo in 2009. The article also explores the transition of Pacific Scoop into Asia-Pacific Report , launched in partnership with an innovative web-based partner, Evening Report . The study analyses the strategic and innovation efforts in the context of continuing disruptions to New Zealand’s legacy media practices related to the Asia-Pacific region.

Review: Merdeka: Media and the case for Papuan civil resistance

Five years ago the Pacific Media Centre and Pacific Media Watch published a ‘state of media freedom report’—the first such documentation in the Pacific region—and the most devastating section was about West Papua (Perrottet & Robie, 2011, 2012). The harrowing account of human rights violations and abuses of freedom of speech by the Indonesian military and security forces eclipsed comparable reports from the Pacific, including Fiji which was at the time a cause celebre for free press champions. The theme of this report echoed many articles I have written over the years highlighting the ‘black’ or ‘blind spot’ demonstrated by New Zealand media neglect of covering West Papua and the self-determination cause (see Robie, 2011). Since then much has changed.