Pacific Journalism Review (Pacific Media Centre, School of Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology)
Not a member yet
1090 research outputs found
Sort by
Citizen media and civil resistance in West Papua
Get PDFThis article charts the dynamics and trajectory of citizen media activism in West Papua’s fight for freedom which has progressed from not even registering in news rooms around the world to influencing sub-regional and regional bodies. Citizen media has played an essential role in this transformation. In 1998, when the Indonesian military massacred more than 100 unarmed West Papuans in Biak Island, it took weeks and months to get the news out. Back then West Papua was a military operations area (Daerah Operasi Militer). Few journalists were willing to risk travelling into the country to get the story out. In January 2016 West Papua remains an occupied colony. The Indonesian government still tries to curtail open access to West Papua for foreign journalists but courageous young people armed with cell phones are finding ways to bypass the government’s failed attempt at an informational blockade and it is making a difference. West Papuans are now members of the Melanesian Spearhead Group and the Pacific Island Forum is starting to take notice of the Pacific’s longest running self-determination and decolonisation struggle
‘Journalism of hope’ realities in post-election Fiji
Get PDFCommentary: In the lead up to Fiji General Election in September 2014, there was an air of positivity among media workers that despite the difficulties since the military takeover in December 2006—including the imposition of the Media Industry Development Decree in 2010—their operating environment would possibly be easing. The Fiji Sun, which had chosen in 2009 after the abolition of the 1997 Constitution to change its stance, adopting an editorial policy unabashedly partisan towards the Voreqe Bainimarama-led government, opened up its pages to all political parties and candidates giving them relatively free rein to comment on the political landscape as they saw it. Media organisations ran reports that criticised the military-led regime’s performance as campaigning began to pick up. However, not long after the much-hailed return-to-democracy election it became clear that the reappearance of media vibrancy and plurality would not happen overnight. The author critically examines the post-election climate and draws on his personal experience as a Fiji news media editor
Frontline: The Rainbow Warrior, secrecy and state terrorism: A Pacific journalism case study
Get PDFFrance detonated 193 of a total of 210 nuclear tests in the South Pacific, at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls, before halting them in 1996 in the face of Pacific-wide protests. On 10 July 1985, French secret agents bombed the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, killing photographer Fernando Pereira, in a futile bid to stop a protest flotilla going to Moruroa. The author was on board the Rainbow Warrior for more than 10 weeks of her last voyage. He was awarded the 1985 New Zealand Media Peace Prize for reportage and investigations into the ‘Rainbow Warrior and Rongelap Evacuation’. The following year, the author’s book Eyes of Fire told the inside story of state terrorism in the Pacific. He has subsequently reflected on a 20-year legal struggle by Television New Zealand and other media campaigners to prevent the French spies gagging reportage of their guilty plea from a public video record and the lingering secrecy about the health legacy of nuclear tests in the Pacific. In the context of the Frontlineproject for journalism as research, his work inspired a microsite—a community-driven collaborative project in 2015 coordinated by the publishers, Little Island Press, interrogating participants over a three-decade period and ‘challenging the nature of mainstream media in New Zealand’ with an alternative reader’s media model
Review: Seymour Hersh—behind the man and the muckraker myths
No full textReview of: Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist, by Robert Miraldi. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2013, 415pp. ISBN 978-1-61234-475-1.After winning acclaim for his depiction of yellow press icon Charles Edward Russell, award-winning journalist and academic Robert Miraldi examines the legacy of another mythical investigative reporter and obsessive ‘muckracker’. His biography of the chameleon-like and elusive Seymour Hersh employs the same formidable forensic skills his subject is renowned for, but to dig into the one topic Hersh is genuinely uncomfortable discussing. From his initial coverage of My Lai through to his work on Abu Grahib, Hersh’s career has seen him reach the highest pinnacles of journalism, while also causing the kind of controversy and polarisation which would have destroyed the reputations of lesser mortals
Noted: RSF cheekily climbing the barricades
No full textReviews of: Saving Independent Journalism: 30 Years Defending Media and Hostile Climate of Environmental Journalists. Paris, France: Reporters Without Borders. No ISBN (Reviewed by David Robie); The United Nations and Freedom of Expression and Information, edited by Tarlach McGonagle and Yvonne Donders. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107083868 (Reviewed by Philip Cass); Pacific Way: Auckland's Pasifika Community Diaspora Media, by Michael Neilson. Auckland: Pacific Media Centre. ISBN 978-1-927184-35-6 (Reviewed by Mari Dunlop).Thirty years ago, Reporters Sans Frontières began its global campaign for the protection of journalists and against propaganda as a fledgling NGO in the southern French city of Montpellier. Better known in the Anglophone world as Reporters Without Borders, RSF declares in the editorial of this milestone publication that it has been ‘cheekily climbing the barricades, boldly waving freedom’s banner, proclaiming the virtues of journalism, supporting heroes, dispensing safety equipment, funding resistance and applying pressure in the palaces where the laws are written’ (p. 3)
Covering cops: Critical reporting of Indonesian police corruption
Get PDFThe following article analyses contemporary newspaper representations of police corruption in Indonesia’s premier English-language newspaper, The Jakarta Post. The article draws on primary data obtained from 114 articles published online between January and December 2013. The subsequent quantitative analysis found that The Jakarta Post reported on various forms of police corruption in both specific and general contexts with a majority of reports focusing on the investigation of corruption allegations where at least three people were involved. Information about suspects was also provided. Qualitative analysis indicated the following themes were frequently discussed: the extent of police corruption; causes of police corruption; fighting police corruption; the belief that police cannot be trusted to investigate internal police corruption; and that police corruption interferes with external investigations. Despite many obstacles involved in reporting police corruption, the authors argue that overall The Jakarta Post takes a critical view in its reporting of police corruption
Journalism capstone units based on agreed principles and standards
Get PDFThe concept of capstone units is gaining currency within the Australian Higher Education system, with a growing focus on enhancing graduate employability and assuring graduate outcomes. The aim of this paper is to report on an 18-month study of undergraduate journalism capstone units in Australian universities. Just over half of the universities in Australia that teach journalism (16 out of 30), embed capstone units in their programmes, and the study, which began in September 2015, is part of part of an Australian Learning and Teaching Fellowship. It is divided into three stages. The first stage involved face-to-face interviews with journalism academics at 16 universities in five States, to discover what type of capstone unit they use, the principles they employ and the skills students need to demonstrate and apply. This data then underwent a validation process. Stage three of the study will develop resources to support journalism educators in the design or redesign of capstone units, especially in the area of agreed principles, standards and best practice.
Radio New Zealand International: Reporting the Pacific in tight times
Get PDFNew Zealand International (RNZI) broadcasts from New Zealand into the South Pacific and is relayed to South Pacific listeners by their various national news services. In 2006, American academic Andrew M. Clark characterised the role of RNZI as ‘providing a service for the people of the South Pacific’ that also provided ‘an important public diplomacy tool for the New Zealand government’ (Clark, 2006). A decade on, this article evaluates the ongoing use and utility of RNZI as a taxpayer-funded voice of and from New Zealand, as a service for the diverse peoples of the South Pacific and as a tool of New Zealand’s transnational diplomatic efforts. RNZI is still a key source of local and regional information and connection for the distinct cultures and nations of the vast South Pacific area, whose peoples have strong links to New Zealand through historical ties and contemporary diasporas living in the country. But, RNZI now faces mounting financial pressure, a government swinging between indifferent and hostile to public broadcasting and questions of legitimacy and reach in the ‘digital age’. With RNZI under pressure in 2016, key questions arise about its present and future. What is RNZI doing well and not so well? What role should New Zealand’s domestic and international politics play in the organisation and its outputs? And how might its importance and impact be measured and understood in such a culturally and geographically diverse region as the South Pacific? Using a variety of sources, including documents released to the author under the New Zealand Official Information Act, this article explores the role of RNZI in the contemporary New Zealand and South Pacific media environments
Distant, disconnected and in danger: Are educators doing enough to prepare students for frontline freelance risks?
Get PDFFor anyone who has worked in another country, the journalistic ‘rules of engagement’ differ in each port. Foreign correspondents argue passionately for the freedom of the press, saying that by ‘bearing witness’ to crimes against civilians they will be able to effect change. However, in taking risks to report on such events, most journalists recognise that—if their reports displease a particular country’s power elite—they can quickly find themselves deported, banned from future entry, languishing behind bars or, in a worst-case scenario, killed. Using Bourdieuan considerations, this article concentrates on the young, mostly freelance, journalists who have absorbed Western news values—including the myth of the heroic war reporter and truth-seeker—and suggests greater understanding of the cultural and political nuances of countries from which they intend to report. Using journalism as a methodology, this article looks at several cases in which reporters have found themselves in difficulties, and suggests that educators consider sharing three lessons: know your employer; acknowledge local differences between countries; and learn the skill of risk assessment. Risk-assessment skills include stressing the need for sufficient pre-deployment training in first aid, personal safety, security and other protocols and, most importantly, managing exposure to traumatic situations
Review: The realities of authoritarian media in China
Get PDFReview of: Stockman, D. (2012). Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-01844-0 China can no longer be called Communist. It is an authoritarian state in which a party that likes to call itself Communist maintains a firm grip on the country. However much the party and the corrupt party princelings enjoy the benefits of capitalism (and let us be frank that it is a distinctively 19th century robber baron style of capitalism), the government usemethods of media control that have not changed since Mao took power in 1959. Censorship has always been part of the regime, but Mao and his direct successors were always clever enough to give the masses a chance to let off steam now and then through such projects as the Hundred Flowers campaign and the Democracy Wall movement